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Keep your identity small (2009)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Keep your identity small (2009)

#11

Post by angersock »

jdquey wrote: post #6
groby_b wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I don't think we need to even talk about JS, and I'm happy to point him to a few baking forum flame wars that are epic. And his comment about the problem being a threshold for expertise is equally laughable. People feel perfectly happy to comment on anything catching their fancy, expertise or not. (Add to that Dunning Kruger...)

To be fair, he's not saying other topics don't have their major disputes. Just that they don't happen as often.

Just that they don't happen as often.

Again, have you read the spam online about different frontend frameworks?

Re: Keep your identity small (2009)

#12

Post by DonaldFisk »

angersock wrote: post #2

As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Um, Graham is more than a little off here. Like, by a country mile.

I don't feel strongly either way about this. It isn't worth getting into an argument about.

Re: Keep your identity small (2009)

#15

Post by AlwaysBCoding »

dylz wrote: post #3
angersock wrote: post #2

As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Um, Graham is more than a little off here. Like, by a country mile.

Let's discuss text editors. Anyone?

lol @ Vim users that have to write configuration files, memorize complicated keyboard shortcuts, and install 20 plugins just to be able to copy and paste text between files. It's 2016, try using a real editor like Atom.

(Am I doing it right?)

Re: Keep your identity small (2009)

#16

Post by clock_tower »

dylz wrote: post #3
angersock wrote: post #2

As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Um, Graham is more than a little off here. Like, by a country mile.

Let's discuss text editors. Anyone?

Death to Emacs! It's as arrogant as it is shoddy; it has a narrow provincial name for the Alt key, and it makes you learn Lisp in order to make it handle backspaces properly!

Also, you Limeys need to learn how to spell.

(There, that should get the conversational juices flowing...)

Re: Keep your identity small (2009)

#17

Post by phantom_oracle »

> Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions.

What I don't get is who/what determines a threshold?

A university degree? 10 years of experience?

As others have rightly pointed out, perhaps there is no such thing as a "threshold of expertise". Any programmer could have 10 years of experience repeatedly cookie-cutting their beginner-level code and never going beyond that. Does that give them the right to be called/known as JavaScript-Ninjas?

Perhaps Grahams identity leans towards anti-establishment/anti-religion/hacker-think, which by proxy of his argument, makes him partisan towards those opinions about religion and politics (see how the snake eats its own tail here?).

Re: Keep your identity small (2009)

#18

Post by clock_tower »

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #15
dylz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's discuss text editors. Anyone?

lol @ Vim users that have to write configuration files, memorize complicated keyboard shortcuts, and install 20 plugins just to be able to copy and paste text between files. It's 2016, try using a real editor like Atom. (Am I doing it right?)

Yes, you certainly are -- you hateful covert Emacs advocate! I know what you're up to, you're trying to discredit the good editor so that you can quietly build up your overbuilt piece of crap! Atom is built on Emacs, isn't it?!

(/s. All the /s in the world.)

Re: Keep your identity small (2009)

#19

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dylz wrote: post #3
angersock wrote: post #2

As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? Um, Graham is more than a little off here. Like, by a country mile.

Let's discuss text editors. Anyone?

Well, I'm an emacs guy, because I've used it for 30 years, and the commands are burned into my fingertips by now. I'll admit that vi is more logical and easier to learn, though.

And I don't get "religious" about editors except in jest...

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