3 ms·

I find the title of this article condescending. The falsehoods given in this list are surely not believed by all programmers (much less the ones who need to wor

I find the title of this article condescending. The falsehoods given in this list are surely not believed by all programmers (much less the ones who need to work with phone numbers), and moreover I'm sure belief in them is not exclusive to programmers. I might be off-base in this criticism, but to me starting off with "let me show you how you're wrong" is not the best way to engage your readership. Perhaps a better title would be "common misconceptions about phone numbers" or "things to keep in mind when programming with phone numbers".

Swizec 11y ago
Relax, it's a nod to a famous article. You could call it a genre by now: Falsehoods programmers believe about X. Links in other comments.
csydas 11y ago
I can appreciate that it is an aggressive (arguably clickbait) title and can be off-putting, I think the reason there's a focus on programmers is because most other professions will not need to ever know or consider most of these facts about phones ever. The focus on programmers is because virtually every point is about handling phone numbers as data to be processed and worked with, which is a fairly unique perspective that, as far as I can think, only programmers have. Most of the points are pitfalls that might trip up a programmer when working with code that takes a phone number as an input and needs to validate it. While I'll grant that your alternative titles are much less aggressive, the original title really isn't condescending unless you read into it as such, in my opinion. It doesn't say "all programmers", just programmers, and all points seem like fairly common misperceptions.
c3534l 11y ago
It would probably be more accurate if it were titled "Common Assumptions Programmers Often Mistakenly Make." But, meh, the actual article was not very condescending.

3 ms·

I find the title of this article condescending. The falsehoods given in this list are surely not believed by all programmers (much less the ones who need to wor

by thinkpad20 11y ago

Swizec 11y ago
Relax, it's a nod to a famous article. You could call it a genre by now: Falsehoods programmers believe about X. Links in other comments.
csydas 11y ago
I can appreciate that it is an aggressive (arguably clickbait) title and can be off-putting, I think the reason there's a focus on programmers is because most other professions will not need to ever know or consider most of these facts about phones ever. The focus on programmers is because virtually every point is about handling phone numbers as data to be processed and worked with, which is a fairly unique perspective that, as far as I can think, only programmers have. Most of the points are pitfalls that might trip up a programmer when working with code that takes a phone number as an input and needs to validate it. While I'll grant that your alternative titles are much less aggressive, the original title really isn't condescending unless you read into it as such, in my opinion. It doesn't say "all programmers", just programmers, and all points seem like fairly common misperceptions.
c3534l 11y ago
It would probably be more accurate if it were titled "Common Assumptions Programmers Often Mistakenly Make." But, meh, the actual article was not very condescending.