11–18 of 18 posts
I somehow doubt that whatever Zed puts on twitter is going to have any bearing whatsoever on your future employment/ hobbies/ life.
The good thing with online bullies is that they often don't have all that much power. You can be content to ignore them. And sure, maybe sometimes a sharp reply is needed, but stick to the facts, don't get dragged into the mud.
The problem is that these so-called bullies are hurtful to the community. The concept of computing or technology in general is frightening to most because of the apparent "requirements" in terms of knowledge one needs to have to participate in the scene. Browsing the Github repository of your favorite open source application can be overwhelming to inexperienced people, and if you pair this fear newcomers have with a toxic community, the effects can be disastrous.
The good thing is that these "bullies" are a tiny minority. Yes, they are very vocal, but it seems that no one stands up to them (or maybe just chooses to ignore them). Ultimately it varies from community to community.
Zed seems a lot nicer in the videos of his presentations I've seen. Also, he once posted that his online persona is a parody of abrasive tech guru. I was skeptical then. I'm skeptical now. I have yet to quite make up my mind on this. In any case, Zed, by his own admission, writes like he does in order to gain attention. Whether or not you think it's obnoxious and whether you think it's a net loss or gain in this case is up to you.
I suspect Linus only does what he does because he wants to gain a small set of people's attention.
In any case, this strategy works. I think we need to ask ourselves why. I think a part of the answer could be that our the programming field is immature -- both emotionally and in terms of how our culture supports the maintenance of our body of knowledge.
Snide half-truths that tech people say about technology keep propagating, even when they are as useless as the typical ethnic stereotype. It's like we lived in a world where half of all doctors believed in ethnic stereotypes and wrote about them as if they were true in technical literature and openly made professional decisions based on them.
I'll close with a quote: "I'm an old-fashioned guy, & I believe in history. The disinterest & disdain for history is what makes computing not-quite-a-field." --Alan Kay
Yes, posting one big ad hominem attack because you got your ego bruised will really help make the tech community a better place. Nothing more constructive than a nice dose of character assassination. The author is basically doing exactly the same as Zed Shaw, only using more words and less four letter ones. Edit: Correction, this is post is more insidious than simply calling someone a fucking moron on Twitter. Both a…
@wilkieii (552 followers) "Zed Shaw's response was not a very friendly one..."
If you think about it, on Twitter the barrier between people is pixel-thin. It's pretty easy to get into an argument with someone with a single tweet in mere seconds. Within minutes you could easily find yourself being on the receiving end of the latest internet crusade.
While I'm sure it would be nice if everyone was forced to act nice, the reality is Twitter is so immediate and in-your-face that when you receive a tweet its almost as if someone has come up to you and said it in your face. And to some people that hits deep. Deep enough to start the drama unfolding.