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Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting

thewebivore.com

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Re: Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting

#81

Post by iamchrisle »

My name is Chris Le and I was there.

Here's what I recall happened:

1. Dude was making a presentation on meta programming.

2. Dude had his laptop plugged in and live coded.

3. Dude seemed to struggle a little.

4. Katz asked him "Why are you doing it this way? Shouldn't you ..."

5. Dude attempted to explain. Possibly tripped up by the question.

6. Group + Katz helped to debug his code and got it working.

7. Katz explained that his code was a common anti-pattern and why.

8. Katz plugged in his laptop and wrote the code on his machine.

9. Katz explained the difference between "extend" and "include" in a module.

10. David did another meta programming demo + counterpoint to Katz.

I don't remember "dude"'s name. It was my 3rd time there. Also, sorry I don't have the presentation. The gist is here that David rewrote and posted: https://gist.github.com/1893359

Re: Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting

#83

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

grandalf wrote: post #40

At the highest levels, in academia, business, and the arts, the sort of behavior Yehuda exhibited is completely acceptable. If you respect the discipline/art/science enough, then you value truth over the ego of some lesser being. People who dislike the conflict in these kinds of interactions are also inclined to dislike conflict on the editorial page, preferring instead bland "objective" writing. The thing is, nothin…

You present a false dichotomy. It's possible to correct without belittling. The truth and tact are not alternatives, they can co-exist with no problems.

You don't have to pick the truth or "the ego of some lesser being", they can be fine together with no problem at all. "Conflict" and the assessment of alternative views is entirely possible without one party giving another a kicking.

And "some lesser being"? For the love of God get over yourself.

Re: Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting

#84

Post by bravura »

If you are going to interrupt a speaker to criticize their work, always shoot for the head. And only do this after you have seen it done successfully several times.

That is what I was taught in grad school. It's rarely observed.

More specifically:

If the talk is informal and the speaker invites discussion, then by all means discuss. But only discuss things that are of general interest. Things that are of interest to a small number of people should be discussed offline.

If the talk is formal, then the only times to interrupt are if the slide is unclear or there is something that needs clarification, and is of general interest.

The general principle is to discuss things offline except in the face of strong evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, there are a few loud types who don't observe this principle, to everyone's detriment.

Re: Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting

#86

Post by jcoffey »

Since this is clearly making news and some people are using it as an excuse for some axe-grinding it seems like the OP really needs to clarify the context behind the post. What exactly were the issues with the first speakers talk? How glaringly bad were they? Exactly what words did Yehuda use - it seems like some people are jumping to conclusions and some clarification is in order.

Re: Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting

#88

Post by iamchrisle »

scott_s wrote: post #15

I suppose you need to say up front what the expectations for the meeting are. I give and sit on presentations from other researchers, and I have even come up with a metric to express how many questions there are: MTTI, mean time to interruption. I have been in presentations with an MTTI of 1 minute. A typical presentation has an MTTI of about 5 minutes. A presentation with "few" interruptions has an MTTI of about 15…

I was there. Here is the event timeline here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3833063

Gist that someone else recaptured here: https://gist.github.com/1893359

Re: Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting

#89

Post by andyl »

martco wrote: post #59

This isn't the only time Yehuda Katz has bogarted a talk. I listen to the Javascript Jabber podcast. One talk was on Backbone. Jeremy Ashkenas was a guest, and I was really looking forward to listening to it. Yehuda was also on the call as a host. Throughout the call Yehuda repeatedly interrupted and contradicted Jeremy. He would go off on tangents for several minutes, talking about his own work. The main host tried…

I heard that episode as well and was dismayed by Yehuda's lack of impulse control and disrespect for the speaker. But I continue to watch Yehuda's work closely - the dude is a programming athlete.

Re: Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting

#90

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

grandalf wrote: post #67
e40 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because he's the best programmer in the room doesn't excuse his horrible and unacceptable behavior. He this type of behavior goes unchallenged and is allowed to flourish, then many people will lose a voice. I think that would be tragic.

I think the solution is for people to feel comfortable defending their approach OR admitting they were wrong, and realizing that the goal for everyone is learning, not being right. Yehuda may have spent hours, months, or years coming up with the insights he shared, so of course he's going to feel strongly about wanting to prevent others from wasting the time the way he did.

If he felt so strongly about preventing others wasting time then wouldn't he have been better putting them forward in a diplomatic way that didn't embarrass the presenter (who was as a result likely to be defensive and therefore unlikely to learn) and alienate some members of the audience (and who now think he's a dick and are probably less likely to learn from him)?

Yehuda's approach if accurately described was as much about being right as about others learning. Confrontation is rarely a good teaching technique so I'm not clear why you justify his behaviour as in some way enhancing that goal.

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