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> I find it funny and think it's pretty telling that there are bold claims made that are only crossed out after the author is corrected ... What else would you

by dbaupp 10y ago

> I find it funny and think it's pretty telling that there are bold claims made that are only crossed out after the author is corrected ... What else would you expect? The author observed something, drew a mistaken conclusion, wrote it up, and then had the mistake pointed out, and so retracted. I can't imagine the author realised their claims were wrong before it was pointed out, so of course they're only going to cross them out after being corrected. Of course, it's rather unfortunate that an incorrect write-up is being upvoted to the top of HN but that's not the author's problem (other than the choice of the rather clickbaity title...). For the specifics of this post, there's some subtle differences between how Rust and C++ behave that could easily explain how the author observed differing behaviour and thus jumped to the conclusion, as explored on /r/rust: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/63ijkw/rust_optimizations_that_c_cant_do/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/63ijkw/rust_optimizat...

nebabyte 10y ago
> are bold claims made Probably a lack of bold claims of things the author doesn't actually know to be true? i.e. 'lurk moar' in an educational context. Correcting false assertions isn't as praiseworthy as not making false assertions in the first place. The former is a monkey-patch for a flawed mindframe; the latter is better for all actors in knowledge acquisition and dissemination.
- dbaupp 10y ago
  I agree 100% that authors should be very sure before making aggressive/clickbaity/bold claims (and I take a slightly perverse pleasure in cutting wild claims down to size, like this case), but (a) as an author, it can be hard to distinguish whether one is very sure about a true thing, or very sure about a false thing (which is why things like kibwen's offer of proof-reading is good), and (b) once the mistake is made, how should the author respond? The parent comment seems to making a deal of the author crossing out the claims after the mistake was pointed out, as if there was something else they could do?! The blog would've been much better if it had been written in a less confrontational style, so the mistake becomes more of a learning experience for everyone instead of this finger-pointing match.
  - kibwen 10y ago
    > I take a slightly perverse pleasure in cutting wild claims down to size I want you to know how much I appreciate this, Huon. :)
  - nebabyte 10y ago
    > The blog would've been much better if it had been written in a less confrontational style, so the mistake becomes more of a learning experience for everyone instead of this finger-pointing match. I wholeheartedly agree, both in this specific instance and in general. There's a reason experienced learners generally (in my experience) take a non-assumptive/non-assertive tone. When you've learned enough times how little you know, you've somewhat trained yourself to be open to learning sooner than trying to assert what you 'knew' as certainty. Though the latter tends to be a more comforting notion, the idea that you "have the measure of things;" when your 'being wrong' leads to a misprediction or failure, and you wish to transition to 'knowing' what was correct with grace, which is easier when you 'weren't being a dick about it', i.e. being nonconfrontational. I like to think of this SMBC graph on knowledge in relation to this. http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2177 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2177
kibwen 10y ago
> I can't imagine the author realised their claims were wrong before it was pointed out It should be noted that the Rust community team has an open offer to proofread the draft of any Rust-related blog post to help ensure technical accuracy, specifically to help prevent embarrassing things like this. :P Preventing the generation of misinformation is cheaper than curing its dissemination, after all. I've already reached out to the author to make sure they're aware of this offer for the future.
- TomasSedovic 10y ago
  Is this described anywhere? I've been using Rust for a few years, been hanging around it's subreddit for about as long and this is the first time I hear about it. This is a fantastic idea but maybe we need to make it more visible?
wfunction 10y ago
> ... What else would you expect? Exactly the same things you already wrote: > that authors should be very sure before making aggressive/clickbaity/bold claims > The blog would've been much better if it had been written in a less confrontational style Both are totally possible regardless of how sure you are. If you take a risk and are proven wrong, get less aggressive/bold/clickbaity in the next post, instead of trying to justify the same claim with a different argument. That's what I'd expect.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Both are totally possible regardless of how sure you are. Yes, but both are considered increasingly redundant by a writer depending on how sure they are.

by dbaupp 10y ago

nebabyte 10y ago

> are bold claims made Probably a lack of bold claims of things the author doesn't actually know to be true? i.e. 'lurk moar' in an educational context. Correcting false assertions isn't as praiseworthy as not making false assertions in the first place. The former is a monkey-patch for a flawed mindframe; the latter is better for all actors in knowledge acquisition and dissemination.

dbaupp 10y ago
I agree 100% that authors should be very sure before making aggressive/clickbaity/bold claims (and I take a slightly perverse pleasure in cutting wild claims down to size, like this case), but (a) as an author, it can be hard to distinguish whether one is very sure about a true thing, or very sure about a false thing (which is why things like kibwen's offer of proof-reading is good), and (b) once the mistake is made, how should the author respond? The parent comment seems to making a deal of the author crossing out the claims after the mistake was pointed out, as if there was something else they could do?! The blog would've been much better if it had been written in a less confrontational style, so the mistake becomes more of a learning experience for everyone instead of this finger-pointing match.
- kibwen 10y ago
  > I take a slightly perverse pleasure in cutting wild claims down to size I want you to know how much I appreciate this, Huon. :)
- nebabyte 10y ago
  > The blog would've been much better if it had been written in a less confrontational style, so the mistake becomes more of a learning experience for everyone instead of this finger-pointing match. I wholeheartedly agree, both in this specific instance and in general. There's a reason experienced learners generally (in my experience) take a non-assumptive/non-assertive tone. When you've learned enough times how little you know, you've somewhat trained yourself to be open to learning sooner than trying to assert what you 'knew' as certainty. Though the latter tends to be a more comforting notion, the idea that you "have the measure of things;" when your 'being wrong' leads to a misprediction or failure, and you wish to transition to 'knowing' what was correct with grace, which is easier when you 'weren't being a dick about it', i.e. being nonconfrontational. I like to think of this SMBC graph on knowledge in relation to this. http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2177 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2177

kibwen 10y ago

> I can't imagine the author realised their claims were wrong before it was pointed out It should be noted that the Rust community team has an open offer to proofread the draft of any Rust-related blog post to help ensure technical accuracy, specifically to help prevent embarrassing things like this. :P Preventing the generation of misinformation is cheaper than curing its dissemination, after all. I've already reached out to the author to make sure they're aware of this offer for the future.

TomasSedovic 10y ago
Is this described anywhere? I've been using Rust for a few years, been hanging around it's subreddit for about as long and this is the first time I hear about it. This is a fantastic idea but maybe we need to make it more visible?

wfunction 10y ago

> ... What else would you expect? Exactly the same things you already wrote: > that authors should be very sure before making aggressive/clickbaity/bold claims > The blog would've been much better if it had been written in a less confrontational style Both are totally possible regardless of how sure you are. If you take a risk and are proven wrong, get less aggressive/bold/clickbaity in the next post, instead of trying to justify the same claim with a different argument. That's what I'd expect.

coldtea 10y ago
>Both are totally possible regardless of how sure you are. Yes, but both are considered increasingly redundant by a writer depending on how sure they are.