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Ben Noordhuis's Departure

blog.nodejs.org

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Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#21

Post by dekz »

Wow. Joyent certainly came out looking childish and pedantic to go so far as publishing a blog posturing and name calling[1]. I am at a loss to even comprehend why this amount of feminist alliance was even required by Bryan Cantrill, or why even such a public naming and shaming is being advocated by Joyent as a company. I'm not on the Joyent hate wagon but they certainly come out of this looking hilariously immature.

@bnoordhuis if you're reading this, I've never used libuv as a developer, but you obviously worked hard on the project. I'm sorry you had to felt forced to give it up over some blog post from a company I once believed to be reputable.

[1]: http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun [1a]: mirror: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/3051faface454d516929/raw/3...

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#22

Post by michaelsbradley »

I find myself quite saddened by the whole affair.

I am a big fan of Node.js (though I spend as much time or more with Clojure/JVM these days). Over the past year+, I've been very impressed with the tech coming out of Joyent and the engineering team/s led by Bryan Cantrill.

Without intending to be inflammatory, I must say that I found Bryan's blog post regarding pronouns and assholes to be unprofessional and disturbing.

I asked Mikeal Rogers[1] about his thoughts regarding the ethical limits of "unacceptance" policies/campaigns within developer communities and workplaces[2], and I would be interested to read the HN crowd's feedback as well.

[1] https://github.com/mikeal

[2] https://gist.github.com/mikeal/7724521

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#23

Post by xs_kid »

selmnoo wrote: post #7

For those who don't know what's going on: Joyent made a blogpost calling Ben, (one of _THE_ most prolific contributors to nodjs), an asshole ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) and said they'd fire him if he'd been working for them, because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral. Here's Ben's last response to the whole ordeal: https://github.com/joyent/li…

That was Joyent defending their control over to project, remember that Ben & StrongLoop were a menace for Joyent:

http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/18/can-this-startup-steal-nod...

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#24

Post by sneak »

selmnoo wrote: post #7

For those who don't know what's going on: Joyent made a blogpost calling Ben, (one of _THE_ most prolific contributors to nodjs), an asshole ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) and said they'd fire him if he'd been working for them, because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral. Here's Ben's last response to the whole ordeal: https://github.com/joyent/li…

> I don't know how much truth there is to that, but as a general spectator I feel like wanting to remark that Bryan Cantrill only fanned the fire here in all of this. Pretty much every participating party in this whole thing came out looking like a loser, Joycent, Strongloop, the whole nodejs scene. Here's hoping Ben now finds a workplace that appreciates him for his talents and respects him as a person.

If he's butthurt over such a tiny change (one that is entirely legitimate, all things considered) in documentation, they're right for calling him an asshole.

Seriously, go look at the diff that he had such an issue with:

https://github.com/alex/libuv/commit/1ff9d18d398fb9f35b72fa0...

He could have just smooshed the big green button and scored one for the "not pointlessly defaulting to masculine terms" team, but instead he had to turn it into an "omfg no this is stupid" debate.

Inequality doesn't change by embracing the status quo simply because that's how we've always done things. As much as Joyent look like turds here, they did the right thing.

If he'd worked for me, I'd have fired him for such assholery too. We're talking about a one-line documentation change of "him" to "they", for fuck's sake.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#25

Post by Lazare »

xs_kid wrote: post #23
selmnoo wrote: post #7

For those who don't know what's going on: Joyent made a blogpost calling Ben, (one of _THE_ most prolific contributors to nodjs), an asshole ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) and said they'd fire him if he'd been working for them, because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral. Here's Ben's last response to the whole ordeal: https://github.com/joyent/li…

That was Joyent defending their control over to project, remember that Ben & StrongLoop were a menace for Joyent: http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/18/can-this-startup-steal-nod...

That explains a ton, I imagine. It might even explain everything.

...makes Ben's decision to pull out of the project even more interesting though. Where does that leave StrongLoop?

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#26

Post by rosser »

Zikes wrote: post #19
mseepgood wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral He didn't only refuse such a commit. He actively reverted it.

Semantics. It's the same as saying "no", and then saying "no" again. Really, if there's one thing I thought feminists had taken to heart it's "no means no".

if there's one thing I thought feminists had taken to heart it's "no means no".

I'm a dude, and this comment seriously offends me.

I'm sure you thought you were being funny or something, but I dare you to make that kind of quip to a woman's face, and see if you don't begin realize why by the way her expression changes.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#27

Post by xs_kid »

dekz wrote: post #21

Wow. Joyent certainly came out looking childish and pedantic to go so far as publishing a blog posturing and name calling[1]. I am at a loss to even comprehend why this amount of feminist alliance was even required by Bryan Cantrill, or why even such a public naming and shaming is being advocated by Joyent as a company. I'm not on the Joyent hate wagon but they certainly come out of this looking hilariously immature.…

Joyent was clearly trying to harm the reputation of Ben and of his employeer StrongLoop

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#28

Post by mcantelon »

mseepgood wrote: post #14
selmnoo wrote: post #7

For those who don't know what's going on: Joyent made a blogpost calling Ben, (one of _THE_ most prolific contributors to nodjs), an asshole ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) and said they'd fire him if he'd been working for them, because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral. Here's Ben's last response to the whole ordeal: https://github.com/joyent/li…

> because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral He didn't only refuse such a commit. He actively reverted it.

He claims he reverted it because the commit was pushed through without going through the required process. My guess is the whole affair was the boiling over of tensions that existed long before the pull request.

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#29

Post by rosser »

goldenkey wrote: post #16
Zikes wrote: post #9

Joyent called Ben an asshole and said they wanted to fire him over a minor grammatical preference. [1] But let's "please respect [their] wishes to let this issue rest", because it's not like we need an apology or any sort of reassurance from the company that owns a rising star of technology that we're supposed to invest our time and money in. Good luck finding a replacement. [1] http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-o…

Holy crap, what a read. You have to wonder... What feminist muff is he puffing? I can't stand white knighting especially when it befalls other men in armor. Ben, you've got my sympathies and support, sorry you have to hear this immature politico-feminist-fascluckery from Joyent

What feminist muff is he puffing?

Seriously, what does this contribute to the discussion?

Re: Ben Noordhuis's Departure

#30

Post by selmnoo »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #18
selmnoo wrote: post #7

For those who don't know what's going on: Joyent made a blogpost calling Ben, (one of _THE_ most prolific contributors to nodjs), an asshole ( http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun ) and said they'd fire him if he'd been working for them, because he refused to take a commit making language in some part of the code gender-neutral. Here's Ben's last response to the whole ordeal: https://github.com/joyent/li…

>Here's hoping Ben now finds a workplace that appreciates him for his talents and respects him as a person. Did Ben leave strongloop as well? Reading between the lines regarding stepping away form Node.js vs just the responsibilities that come with being a core contributor looks ambiguous.

That was the impression I got from some idle IRC chat, but after checking for myself I can find no concrete evidence verifying if he's parted ways with Strongloop or not.
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