761–770 of 826 posts
I found CH to be particularly tiresome, all show and little substance. Also very much prone to contradictions, he doesn't seem to realize that people remember things. I haven't met him in person, but I imagine he talks quite a lot at a loud volume.
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Their dignity should not be dependent on their job area being flawless. Thinking they screwed up on a single hobby project should not cause a loss of respect for the person.
There's a big gap between "not flawless" and "my eyes are bleeding" or "I can't make this stuff up". Also: "should" != "is", I'm afraid.
There are several aspects to this. The obvious one is that anything you put out there is going to get criticisms. Look at Barack Obama being called a socialist muslim atheist, who attended Rev. Wright's church for 20 years. The point is, if you step up, not everyone will like you.
Now, being denounced by people who are well-respected and with a big following can hurt. Then again, I doubt it's very permanent. If this is the ONLY thing you've ever done, then you should just do more things.
If you are that sensitive about something, don't release it under your own name. Invent a handle just for this project. Kind of like a limited liability company. The art of the pseudonym goes back hundreds of years.
Also keep in mind the culture. Unfortunately in my opinion, the coder culture is full of elitist snark against noobs who are too visible. Maybe because it's so male. I have seen far worse reactions to people's code on IRC, especially some assholes in EFNet chatrooms. Freenode seems a bit nicer and well-behaved. But saying ridiculously quirky offensive things in response to code is something coders do to each other all the time. It's just the way many of them speak. I personally don't, and I find it extremely annoying, and I wish it would go away, but it's the reality.
Now as far as open source ... I remember releasing what I considered to be a very impressive (at the time) framework, http://phponpie.com , and although I got pretty positive responses http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1682933, and constructive criticism, it didn't really take off. I tried a bit of self-promotion and it didn't pay off either. So to me, releasing open source is kind of a lot like releasing any product ... if people don't really want it, then you're putting in a lot of effort for almost no return. Think about product-market fit in open source, just like anywhere else.
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No more so than if you were extremely negative and played the blame game. Ignoring issues is not what I'd call positive though. That's just delusion.
Being positive in the face of unrealistic deadlines is exactly that, delusion, and it's a pretty damn common and popular one in a large percentage of all software projects. Look, I'm not saying that a positive attitude is bad, just that it definitely shouldn't be your #1 priority as proposed in the first comment I was replying to.
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Insulting someone's code is like insulting someone's kid. The guy probably feels he put a lot of thought and hard work into it. It's not that hard to give constructive feedback as opposed to being an asshole.
By "the guy" do you mean "Heather"?
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I didn't come up with that quote. I believe someone famish like Martin Fowler did a few years back. > You are way too attached to your code. For most people this is subconscious. If you're not, good for you.
Someone like Martin Fowler should have better sense. Probably 75% of code is hideous when it's written. Probably 99.9% is hideous a few years later. Someone who's so attached to their code that they can't accept criticism (even harsh criticism) of it is pretty much guaranteed to be writing crappy code. You'll notice that harthur didn't flip out as if her child was insulted. Instead she asked for constructive feedback…
Whoever came up with the orig quote does have good sense. I've worked with a lot of people ranging from NASA to new hotness start ups. I would say 95% people would be pissed no matter the skill level if you just made fun of their work as opposed to offering constructive criticism.
> Someone who's so attached to their code
I'm sure that most people who care about the quality of their work is somewhat attached to their code.
> that they can't accept criticism (even harsh criticism) of it is pretty much guaranteed to be writing crappy code
The issue at hand isn't that Heather can't accept any sort of criticism. The issue is still that you don't have to be a fucking dick to criticize someone else's work. It's not hard to offer constructive criticism as opposed to just trashing and making fun of something someone worked on for months or even years.
> You'll notice that harthur didn't flip out as if her child was insulted.
Umm she was crying; not only that - she posted that she cried. I would say she was pretty upset; she just handled herself well despite the circumstances.
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This is bound to be an unpopular opinion, but why exactly does anyone have to apologize? He's absolutely right. Criticism comes from every corner, especially in the software world. Your code stands for itself. Simple as that. And I tell this to almost every programmer I work with at some point or another. If they have an emotional response to a code review, or criticism of any kind—"Code is never personal. Whatever I…
> Code is never personal. Whatever I say about your code has nothing to do with you. I've heard this repeated ad nauseum (not just in this thread) and I think it's total crap. You cannot tell me that if you spend dozens of hours writing something then someone comes along and goes line by line telling you how what you wrote is an abomination that you're not going to have an emotional response. If that's the case it ha…
Heck developers are still fine, try talking to a doctor about some other doctor's work, even if all you utter is a minor work of praise for the other guy you will receive nothing short of total angry response loaded with utmost display of ego possible.
Never needlessly criticize someone's work or praise a competitor in front of the person. Unless something big is at stake.
Everything is subjective and everything is personal. That's how human beings work.
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Someone like Martin Fowler should have better sense. Probably 75% of code is hideous when it's written. Probably 99.9% is hideous a few years later. Someone who's so attached to their code that they can't accept criticism (even harsh criticism) of it is pretty much guaranteed to be writing crappy code. You'll notice that harthur didn't flip out as if her child was insulted. Instead she asked for constructive feedback…
> Someone like Martin Fowler should have better sense. Probably 75% of code is hideous when it's written. Probably 99.9% is hideous a few years later. Whoever came up with the orig quote does have good sense. I've worked with a lot of people ranging from NASA to new hotness start ups. I would say 95% people would be pissed no matter the skill level if you just made fun of their work as opposed to offering constructiv…
Everything in this world is subjective. When you talk about someone's work you are inevitable bringing some degree of comparison into it, and human ego has huge troubles dealing with that.
Nobody ever forgets an insult, it comes back sooner or later.
Reverse misogyny. Had a man wrote a blog entry about crying due to 'boohoo comments' on the internet would get chastised out of the industry. A woman writes a blog entry about how her feelings get hurt and everyone with a set of swingers breaks down , puts on their big boy/high moral pants, and makes a grandiose apology (via published blog post, rather than private channels, because the fanbase must be informed lest…
The story isn't that someone got offended at constructive criticism. For starters, the criticism wasn't constructive or academic, and the criticized thing was just some little tool in a github repo, not an important physics paper, and the reviewers were just assholes, not brilliant assholes. It was just bullying. And this is the story. It's true, of course, that a man would not have this recourse. He's expected to "m…
"Hey, look. sed does this too. Waste of time.".
My point in quoting Pauli was not to show you that academia stays far away from non-constructive criticism. Quite the opposite.
How does "You're not even wrong" help the author of the paper? It doesn't. It's an intentionally low blow meant to make the person reassess their position on the opinion they expounded upon. It's constructive in the fact that "maybe it'll knock some sense into them."
I, too, think the authors of the tweets acted in poor form. However, I have stepped back and looked at this for what it is, someone being upset about bullying on the internet. Bullying in a pseudo anonymous information exchange should not be surprising to anyone, nor should anyone take it so personally.
No boss is going to hire someone else because you got heckled on the internet, sorry. It'll be because you were lesser qualified than the other applicant.
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Someone like Martin Fowler should have better sense. Probably 75% of code is hideous when it's written. Probably 99.9% is hideous a few years later. Someone who's so attached to their code that they can't accept criticism (even harsh criticism) of it is pretty much guaranteed to be writing crappy code. You'll notice that harthur didn't flip out as if her child was insulted. Instead she asked for constructive feedback…
> Someone like Martin Fowler should have better sense. Probably 75% of code is hideous when it's written. Probably 99.9% is hideous a few years later. Whoever came up with the orig quote does have good sense. I've worked with a lot of people ranging from NASA to new hotness start ups. I would say 95% people would be pissed no matter the skill level if you just made fun of their work as opposed to offering constructiv…
I wasn't saying people wouldn't get pissed if you insult their work. I'd be annoyed if someone made fun of my work. But I certainly would not be as angry as if someone insulted my child. Or even my dog.
> The issue at hand isn't that Heather can't accept any sort of criticism.
Obviously not. She handled the situation with an overabundance of grace and asked for meaningful criticism.
> The issue is still that you don't have to be a fucking dick to criticize someone else's work. It's not hard to offer constructive criticism as opposed to just trashing and making fun of something someone worked on for months or even years.
Absolutely. These guys were being jerks. My comment was about being as attached to your code as you are to your child.
> Umm she was crying; not only that - she posted that she cried. I would say she was pretty upset; she just handled herself well despite the circumstances.
I'd say the fact that she asked for feedback is clear evidence that she is not attached to her code the way she might be to a child. Try walking up to a parent and tell them that their child makes your eyes bleed and let me know if they ask you for constructive feedback, vs hitting you, screaming at you, spitting in your face, or just walking away scowling.