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Dear Paul

zedshaw.com

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Re: Dear Paul

#71

Post by ghshephard »

scruple wrote: post #66
richmarr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all sounds great, but then why is he so upset? It's impossible to reconcile your picture with his. So either (a) he's imagining things, or (b) you're painting over the cracks or can't see them, or (c) the real truth is somewhere inbetween.

I imagine that it was prompted by this post [1] which was on the front page a couple of hours ago. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636605

I just clicked on that - here was what the top comment had to say about Zed:

"Zed is known as one of the most prolific and capable software engineers around and I have heard his C code for Mongrel 2 server https://github.com/zedshaw/mongrel2 described as being amongst some of the best examples of C code to study, learn and understand (trying to find the link that said that). I hold his work in high regard."

Re: Dear Paul

#72

Post by jacquesm »

enraged_camel wrote: post #56
thaumaturgy wrote: post #44

Disappointing to see this at 139 points in under an hour (and still going...). It's just a lot of bile. I like Zed when he's talking about software development. I like tptacek when he's talking about cryptography or money or cooking or any of the other several subjects he's reasonably skilled in. I like pg when he's talking about startups. All of them are capable of getting their hackles up, getting in fights, saying…

You should only flag things that are against the guidelines. In that regard, I don't see anything about this particular post that is problematic. It has some bile, sure, but the man makes some excellent points that we would benefit a lot from openly discussing here. The best communities are those that self-reflect. They don't sweep the criticisms under the rug -- and I perceive your flagging as an attempt to do just…

Zed will enter a community, will contribute, will leave and burn his bridges behind him preferably in such a way that those that are still in the community will be seen in as negative light as possible.

See also 'rails is a ghetto', this is in a way the HN variation on that theme.

HN does plenty of introspection but it doesn't need Zed to shoot some more holes in his own foot to tell it what is wrong with it, especially not because Zed himself was an active participant and in fact instigator of some of the nastiest stuff seen here on HN. Addressing Paul like this shows how out of touch he is with respect to the state of affairs on HN.

Note that Zed invariably attacks people when Zed's production is being criticised, this post is a nice example of exactly that.

Zed seems to feel he is personally under attack quite a bit of the time and I've learned to read through his rants with that in mind so if you apply that filter you might get something out of it.

Re: Dear Paul

#73

Post by hueving »

>What if I started offering to advise new coders, the millions I teach a year (yes, millions Paul) to avoid all of your company’s startups?

Talk about delusions of grandeur. Just because people read advise on programming doesn't mean they will listen to political rants of yours. In fact, that's usually the quickest way to kill off your audience. Good programming insights will quickly be shadowed by talk of slobbering on Paul's balls.

Re: Dear Paul

#74

Post by icebraining »

jacquesm wrote: post #53
VeejayRampay wrote: post #15

People can say what they want about Zed Shaw, in the end, he built things. Things used by millions of people. And he does deserve respect for that.

Building things is nice and will get you respect for building things. Attacking people and being abusive will typically undo some of that. The tech community has a couple of other examples of people that built things and that managed to lose a lot or even all of the respect they deserved for that because of other things they did.

There are direct and there are underhanded attacks. Unfortunately, only the former are really condemned.

Re: Dear Paul

#75

Post by icebraining »

hueving wrote: post #55

Does this guy understand that HN is user-submitted content? It's like reading complaints from an old-man the first time he uses the Internet and comes across something offensive.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that zedshaw, who has been an HN user for much longer than you have, understands how it works. Now why don't you try reading the piece under the assumption that he isn't a moron?

Re: Dear Paul

#76

Post by ghshephard »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #44

Disappointing to see this at 139 points in under an hour (and still going...). It's just a lot of bile. I like Zed when he's talking about software development. I like tptacek when he's talking about cryptography or money or cooking or any of the other several subjects he's reasonably skilled in. I like pg when he's talking about startups. All of them are capable of getting their hackles up, getting in fights, saying…

Regarding this Video - I follow tptacek religously, particularly when he's talking about cryptography, and I'm always interested in what Zed is up to. And, while I seem to recall a post by Zed somewhat negative about RoR, I've never heard about this "video".

And if someone like me, who reads HN every day, and follows both Zed, and tptacek postings closely has never heard of it - it's pretty clear that next to 0% of the world even knows what Zed is ranting about.

Re: Dear Paul

#77

Post by jacquesm »

icebraining wrote: post #74
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building things is nice and will get you respect for building things. Attacking people and being abusive will typically undo some of that. The tech community has a couple of other examples of people that built things and that managed to lose a lot or even all of the respect they deserved for that because of other things they did.

There are direct and there are underhanded attacks. Unfortunately, only the former are really condemned.

Try directly criticizing anything Zed has written and see what you reap.

For instance:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1570694

Re: Dear Paul

#78

Post by sillygoose »

jacquesm wrote: post #50

Nothing anybody ever said about Zed did Zed as much damage as anything Zed himself said. I'm flagging this because I don't think that Zed is doing himself a favour with this post.

I'm sure he's glad you're here to protect him from himself!

Re: Dear Paul

#79

Post by hueving »

icebraining wrote: post #62
derefr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, it's sort of odd that it was directed to pg, considering pg has made exactly one comment on HN in the last year. That's pretty much the point Zed was making, in an off-kilter way. Zed is all about real names, taking responsibility for things by putting your name on what you say, talking to people in real life to settle disputes because people aren't empathetic enough online, etc. The abusive comments on HN ne…

I think you missed this part: "Apparently you will allow links to be posted repeatedly even after they’ve been voted down if it’s “gratuitously negative” of me, but take anything about one of your shitty startups down immediately. " (Emphasis mine)

Is there proof of this happening? It sort of sounds like conspiracies a paranoid person would come up with.

Re: Dear Paul

#80

Post by rtpg »

scrollaway wrote: post #47
rtpg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, I think Linus' usage of crass language is just as pointless. It's totally possible to show that you're pissed without demanding that someone be shot or aborted. Language is not "just" language, there's underlying nuance, history in usage of an expression, and overall context. There are degrees, of course, but when you start offending a large portion of your potential audience _solely_ because of the w…

I think Linus' swearing is pointless as well, but people don't get turned off from his posts because the underlying point he makes tends to be true, which is what I'm trying to say here.

having a hard time parsing your comment, and I don't want to do too much back and forth, but:

If you go back to some HN posts linking to mailing list stuff with one of Linus' rants, there's often more than one person saying "I do not want to work on Linux because of how Linus talks".

This could be exaggeration, but it's turned off people and it turns me off. Though I agree that Linus does gets brownie points due to his usual rightness on the technical domain.

In the words of the Dude: not wrong, just an asshole.

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