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> Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? He must not spend a lot of time on Slashdot, or Hacker News, for that matter.
For example, the question of the relative merits of programming languages often degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers.
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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...
I think that's what it comes down to: vi is easier to learn, but emacs is much more powerful. My current job involves using a very esoteric in-house language, which doesn't have any IDEs or even Notepad++ text-formatting extensions; I'm thinking about learning emacs, which can be programmed relatively easily to become little less than an IDE for it. (Speaking of, behold another holy war: IDEs versus command-line deve…
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.
Is he though? Questions on the most performant way to iterate over something rarely result in flame wars. I believe you are thinking of people arguing over JS frameworks or whether JS sucks or not. Both are identity related. When it comes down to arguing the specific mechanics of comparing how framework X uses MVC vs how framework Y uses it, you don't see so much conflict because it is expertise, not identity driven.
> For example, the question of the relative merits of programming languages often degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers.
Then later
> the question of the relative merits of programming languages often degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers.
Also as another poster said, this works because he's been able to go his entire life choosing what to put in and take out of his identity because he is of the privileged class in his society. If someone perpetrated violence on him because of something he _couldn't_ choose, say, his skin color, I have a feeling he'd be less likely to conclude that "The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you."
The people to whom this "labeling" is most important are those who were labeled. Not those who label themselves.
This essay only works because Paul Graham is a white man in America, whose 'identity' is the presumed default in the society he lives in. Anything he makes a part of his identity, he gets to choose. If he chooses nothing, he has the luxury of being 'just normal' and gets to go through life thinking of himself as perfectly rational. Sometimes you get to choose what you identify with. Other times, people choose for you…
> Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums? He must not spend a lot of time on Slashdot, or Hacker News, for that matter.
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?)
No, you're using Atom
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I like, and frequently use, nano. There, I said it. Now vim and emacs users can both mock my child-like ignorance of real text editing.
I will join in on the love for nano. If you are just doing simple things like editing config files it is all you need. I don't use vim often enough ever get really comfortable with it.