Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not HN, it's (am I really about to type this?) hacker culture. It's antagonistic and adversarial; I personally thrive in an environment where I get told to eat shit and die if I ask a question I could have found the answer to on Google. You're fighting nearly 30 years of tradition - don't bother. Just get used to it.
It's not hacker culture where I come from, and it continues only if people enjoy it with all the consequences. There's a difference between a slightly snarky exchange at the office and a forum where people come to talk about ideas. An "eat shit and die" culture might be entertaining for a short while, but ultimately it becomes self-destructive when nobody cares to post or show anything new and everything old gets wor…
Also, no one ever said, "come back when you're a Rails-powered millionaire, and by the way if you're not one already you'll never amount to anything". That's not what's happening above, at all. I agree, if that were the case, that's boring and unhelpful, but that's not at all what happened. That's too specific. The above took place because of the obvious and unnecessary trickery in the submission - people don't like to be taken as fools.