In defence of Douglas Crockford • Hacker News Board

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#401

Post by curioussavage » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 5:08 AM UTC

lucisferre wrote: post #66

whorleater wrote: post #12

Ignoring the fact this discussion about this, and this culture as a whole, is a minefield to navigate, it's important to note that Douglas Crockford can definitely be abrasive [1]. The issue at hand is that whether this abrasiveness is a bad thing, when compared to the contributions he's made and whether it leads to constructive discussions. The javascript developer who took offense (Kas?) definitely seems to have ta…

> it's important to note that Douglas Crockford can definitely be abrasive [1]. The issue at hand is that whether this abrasiveness is a bad thing, when compared to the contributions he's made and whether it leads to constructive discussions. I'm not sure what bearing, if any, one's contributions should have on how individuals or communities respond to behaviour and "abrasiveness". Good deeds should obviously be resp…

All of that is besides the point. It was unprofessional and petty to make a public announcement out of that. All you have to say is that so and so is not coming anymore. Is this conference ran by a bunch of high school kids?

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#402

Post by curioussavage » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 5:13 AM UTC

braythwayt wrote: post #281

whorleater wrote: post #12

Ignoring the fact this discussion about this, and this culture as a whole, is a minefield to navigate, it's important to note that Douglas Crockford can definitely be abrasive [1]. The issue at hand is that whether this abrasiveness is a bad thing, when compared to the contributions he's made and whether it leads to constructive discussions. The javascript developer who took offense (Kas?) definitely seems to have ta…

> Discourse and disagreement with speakers is natural and should be encouraged, as it oftentimes leads to enlightening discussions for bystanders and conference attendees, which was the entire point of the conference in the first place. I agree with this, but we should tease “disagreement about the ideas that are the purpose of the conference” apart from “disagreement about things not relevant to the conference.” If…

Well since the person who seems to hate him so much gave a talk at that conference same conference a year before that had nothing to do with Javascript or node (something about community/inclusivity big surprise) I would say that "on topic" covers just about anything for these circus events.

I would say he is one of the more likely speakers to stay on topic.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#403

Post by curioussavage » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 5:21 AM UTC

voidr wrote: post #400

The same way we have 'mercury free', it would be great to have a 'social justice warrior free' label. A conference has the right to hand pick the speakers, however I also have the right to vote with my wallet and boycott them. Conferences should be required to disclose if they actively support a political alignment(which is what SJW movements are), so that I as a consumer know to avoid them. A vocal minority of women…

Exactly! The first conference I find that publicly rejects this insanity has my money no questions asked.

PLEASE can somebody do this. There are a ton of people that would support it. If this trend continues those of us with common sense will need to organize to oppose it.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#404

Post by likeclockwork » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #181

tzs wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's easy to look past someone's personal preferences and outrageous comments when you're already part of the club. But respect that that isn't everyone's experience. What specifically did Crockford say that was outrageous?

"I removed comments from JSON because I saw people were using them to hold parsing directives, a practice which would have destroyed interoperability. I know that the lack of comments makes some people sad, but it shouldn't. Suppose you are using JSON to keep configuration files, which you would like to annotate. Go ahead and insert all the comments you like. Then pipe it through JSMin before handing it to your JSON…

That is pretty outrageous. They were to right to disinvite him to speak: he's said enough.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#405

Post by curioussavage » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 5:45 AM UTC

IsaacL wrote: post #377

tzs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sympathetic to the cause of feminism especially in technology and I cringe hard at a lot of the casual sexism that gets thrown around, but this is truly baffling. It's not that baffling. Being a victim of harassment raises your status in certain circles. People in those circles tend to accept your word without requiring any other evidence, and so naturally some people will find harassment in anything tha…

Dude, dude, dude, you've almost identified the real issue here (interpreting everything as harassment for the sake of an agenda), and then gone off onto wild elaborate tangents about social status and evolutionary biology. Look at the actual people who incite these campaigns (e.g., https://twitter.com/nexxylove/status/771503661956501504 ). "Don't bother to examine a folly, ask yourself only what it accomplishes". The…

Oh my goodness they actually have a tweet about the weak map statement!! https://twitter.com/nodebotanist/status/512891046192504832

I thought it was a joke, I mean... its almost funny now.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#406

Post by curioussavage » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 5:47 AM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #316

shruubi wrote: post #147

I'm of two minds here. 1) I personally don't like Douglas Crockford at all, I find him all together arrogant and overly concerned with presenting himself as an infallible single source of truth. I respect the work the man has done, but I personally think the conference is better off without him. 2) It seems that the conference organisers are all too concerned with coming out and proudly parading there actions without…

> using the drama to boost their attendance numbers If they are, then I have to wonder who is actually deciding to come to these conferences based on this? I would think that people with actual coding skills who want to discuss technical ideas are running away. If anybody is deciding to come, it's the type of people whose main skill seems to be finding things to get offended by.

They probably are already. I think their announcement mentioned changing their refund policy to allow refunds this late. Hmm.... I wonder why??

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#407

Post by curioussavage » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 5:49 AM UTC

shruubi wrote: post #147

I'm of two minds here. 1) I personally don't like Douglas Crockford at all, I find him all together arrogant and overly concerned with presenting himself as an infallible single source of truth. I respect the work the man has done, but I personally think the conference is better off without him. 2) It seems that the conference organisers are all too concerned with coming out and proudly parading there actions without…

There is nothing to apologize for https://twitter.com/nodebotanist/status/512891046192504832 ???? really? I thought it was a joke that they were offended by the weak map JOKE but nope. they. were. serious.

The only apology that was warranted was one by the conference and they offered a crappy one in their updated message.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#408

Post by lake99 » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 6:02 AM UTC

pryce wrote: post #397

lake99 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it advocated violence against women You have been misinformed. > had lines like "It's not rape if a Muslim does it." Parody.

Parody should presumably not be a get-out-of-jail free card that that allows people to rinse off and rekindle bloodstained racist tropes about people of different skin color and/or foreigners representing a sexual threat to women. If that were the case, we could simply take any sexist or racist thing we want to say, bake it into the premise of a joke with a parody outcome, and publish it without consequence.

> not be a get-out-of-jail free card

I have no idea if you meant "jail" literally or figuratively. If you meant it literally, our differences are irreconcilable. If you meant it figuratively, no, Dawkins had to face the consequences of retweeting the video. He got disinvited by NECSS, and he was subjected to a ton of abuse and harrassment on Twitter. He was threatened with violence, which is not acceptable by law. As far as I know, he did not press charges against anyone for that, so they go free.

> bloodstained racist tropes about people of different skin color and/or foreigners representing a sexual threat to women

What racist? There was no racism there. Why would you assume that all Islamists would be of a different race and/or nationality than Dawkins. In any case, Muslims are not all the same race either. He has written plenty against Chrisitians and some British political parties too.

> If that were the case ... publish it without consequence.

Well, that was not the case. Dawkins had to face the consequences of his actions. NECSS had to face the consequences of their own actions.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#409

Post by throwawaymaroon » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

iopq wrote: post #135

eli wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they insinuated anything beyond that he apparently made others uncomfortable.

"We have deleted eli's messages from HN because he made others felt uncomfortable."

they're actually not so bad about that.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#410

Post by curioussavage » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 6:09 AM UTC

caseymarquis wrote: post #294

I'm gathering: 1. Based on the article, Crockford makes fun of the less technical speakers for their subjects being trivial and unrelated to real programming. 2. Logically, he's probably been uninvited for this? 3. HN comments go on unrelated tangents that make me not want to live on this planet.

Actually what happened is instead of acting like professionals and adults and just stating that Crockford was no longer in the lineup, the organizers kindly let us know that some people wouldn't be 'comfortable' if he was there. I mean he makes jokes about 'weak maps' ooooh scary.

And thus people are rightly angry, the conference organizers also apologized and rightly so but they still deserve to be called out themselves for total incompetence.