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Everyday here on HN you see discussions about the benefits of a new idea Just the opposite. Rarely do you see any discussion of the benefits of a new idea. It'

Everyday here on HN you see discussions about the benefits of a new idea Just the opposite. Rarely do you see any discussion of the benefits of a new idea. It's mostly hate. I suspect we're probably talking past each other, though. Concrete examples would resolve it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16542183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16542183 Notice the top comment is negative. In general, almost every top comment on HN is negative. It's hard to write well positively, just like it's hard to be a comedian and only make clean jokes.

falcolas 9y ago
As a negative commenter on that topic: it's not a new idea. It's not even a new tool. It's an iteration on an existing tool to make it more user friendly. It's an iteration which, by all appearances, didn't go far enough. Tools, like ideas, get feedback when posted to a forum like this. Feedback is rarely going to be all positive, especially in the cases where a tool is still rough.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  I didn't mean to imply it was a bad thing. I meant to say it's hard to write positively. Without straying too far from the original premise, it's worth pointing out that the idea of using a graph database for traditional tasks is in fact a new idea. Most people would not consider doing it, and that makes it new. Notice an interesting philosophical thing that happens every time philosophical debates occur: We quickly get mixed up in a debate over the meaning of words. "What do you mean by 'new'?" It's worth excluding such questions from debate. Questions over the meaning of words rarely go anywhere interesting. http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html Oh dear, look where we've ended up. But it was an intriguing place, I hope. The overall point is that if you advocate something non-traditional on HN, you're in for a world of hurt. This place is nothing if not adversarial. You'd better have your I's dotted and your T's crossed. But those constraints are what make the medium so interesting.

falcolas 9y ago

As a negative commenter on that topic: it's not a new idea. It's not even a new tool. It's an iteration on an existing tool to make it more user friendly. It's an iteration which, by all appearances, didn't go far enough. Tools, like ideas, get feedback when posted to a forum like this. Feedback is rarely going to be all positive, especially in the cases where a tool is still rough.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
I didn't mean to imply it was a bad thing. I meant to say it's hard to write positively. Without straying too far from the original premise, it's worth pointing out that the idea of using a graph database for traditional tasks is in fact a new idea. Most people would not consider doing it, and that makes it new. Notice an interesting philosophical thing that happens every time philosophical debates occur: We quickly get mixed up in a debate over the meaning of words. "What do you mean by 'new'?" It's worth excluding such questions from debate. Questions over the meaning of words rarely go anywhere interesting. http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html Oh dear, look where we've ended up. But it was an intriguing place, I hope. The overall point is that if you advocate something non-traditional on HN, you're in for a world of hurt. This place is nothing if not adversarial. You'd better have your I's dotted and your T's crossed. But those constraints are what make the medium so interesting.