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Man, people just can't win on HN. Just the other day on HN: people use excel because they don't have the elite mental reasoning ability that programmers have.
by gxs 10y ago
Man, people just can't win on HN.
Just the other day on HN: people use excel because they don't have the elite mental reasoning ability that programmers have. Programmers are so awesome, it's cute that factory foreman use excel when they should be using my stellar programming skills for some hand wavy reason like "it's hard to tell what you did and reproduce it."
OK. Point taken.
Now here the sentiment shifts to the other extreme. People shouldn't go off and try to use cutting edge technology without the skilled supervision of an expert. Really, I would take this story better if Google were involved because they have a monopoly on the world's brain power.
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I get that the common thread in both of them is that a programmer should be involved, and I get that I was overtly sarcastic.
But can't we just judge based on merit? Why not critique his approach, why not suggest what you would have done differently, or something to that effect.
Why do we immediately turn it into smarter than everyone programmer vs the idiot common folk.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoYes, thank you. I'm glad it's not just me noticing that the tone of HN commentary these days is increasingly reminiscent of freshman CS with That One Kid Who Knew Code Before College.
- bushin 10y ago> these days https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- Houshalter 10y agoI read the parent comment completely differently. I don't think he was saying that non-technical-people are worthless and shouldn't try to do anything. I think he was saying that the tools are difficult to use in their current state. Perhaps in the future they will be easier to use and more available. Similar to programming. Programming languages are difficult to get and learn to use. See e.g. my test here on how difficult it is for nontechnical peopel to even install python: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11453086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11453086 Whereas Excel is widely available and taught in schools.