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The problem with articles written by ESR is that the actual discussion gets drowned out by people complaining about the author. The signal to noise ratio goes w

by pjscott 16y ago

The problem with articles written by ESR is that the actual discussion gets drowned out by people complaining about the author. The signal to noise ratio goes way, way down.

neilk 16y ago
Almost every piece of ESR's writing suffers due to his assertions of brilliance or being the unofficial representative of hackerdom. This is usually present in almost every sentence. If you're not an ESR fan it's excruciating. It's a shame because he's a genuinely skilled writer, especially with parodic forms like this. Luckily there is no "Eric" character in these koans.
- borism 16y ago
  I don't know anyone who is esr persona's fan. There is a large community who are his hackerdom writings fans and there is a small community who are fans of his wingnut writings, but it seems to me he doesn't get a lot of friends IRL.
  - bitwize 16y ago
    He does. Some of them are hackers, but it seems a lot of them he meets through his other hobbies: wargaming, shooting, swordfighting, etc. ESR is programming's William Shatner. His various doings get this big inflated ego ascribed to him, but in real life he's just this guy, you know?
    - neilk 16y ago
      No, he just writes blog posts with titles like "The First Time I Changed History". http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539 That said, in the latter half of this post he backpedals and gives the "hacker culture" credit for being able to recognize his contributions, but still -- the title of the article isn't "On the openness of the RFC process in the 80s". I don't know what to think about ESR. I disagree strongly with his interpretation of what hacker culture is, and how free software works, and personally I think it has taken us a long time to undo some of the damage he did to the discourse in both those areas. But he also legitimately influenced a lot of things for the better. Oddly, he seems to be unsatisfied with that level of achievement, and wants to be recognized as being a great statesman or visionary. If he claimed less credit he'd probably get more credit.
docgnome 16y ago
I for one am super glad he "broke us out of the geek ghetto" ( http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=209 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=209 )Do you all remember how terrible it was with the Gestapo beating down our doors? Oh wait. -_- ESR is just full of himself like many other public figures. That said, The Art of Unix Programming was actually a surprisingly good book. I think someone must have edited all the crazy out of it.

by pjscott 16y ago

The problem with articles written by ESR is that the actual discussion gets drowned out by people complaining about the author. The signal to noise ratio goes way, way down.

neilk 16y ago

Almost every piece of ESR's writing suffers due to his assertions of brilliance or being the unofficial representative of hackerdom. This is usually present in almost every sentence. If you're not an ESR fan it's excruciating. It's a shame because he's a genuinely skilled writer, especially with parodic forms like this. Luckily there is no "Eric" character in these koans.

borism 16y ago
I don't know anyone who is esr persona's fan. There is a large community who are his hackerdom writings fans and there is a small community who are fans of his wingnut writings, but it seems to me he doesn't get a lot of friends IRL.
- bitwize 16y ago
  He does. Some of them are hackers, but it seems a lot of them he meets through his other hobbies: wargaming, shooting, swordfighting, etc. ESR is programming's William Shatner. His various doings get this big inflated ego ascribed to him, but in real life he's just this guy, you know?
  - neilk 16y ago
    No, he just writes blog posts with titles like "The First Time I Changed History". http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539 That said, in the latter half of this post he backpedals and gives the "hacker culture" credit for being able to recognize his contributions, but still -- the title of the article isn't "On the openness of the RFC process in the 80s". I don't know what to think about ESR. I disagree strongly with his interpretation of what hacker culture is, and how free software works, and personally I think it has taken us a long time to undo some of the damage he did to the discourse in both those areas. But he also legitimately influenced a lot of things for the better. Oddly, he seems to be unsatisfied with that level of achievement, and wants to be recognized as being a great statesman or visionary. If he claimed less credit he'd probably get more credit.

docgnome 16y ago

I for one am super glad he "broke us out of the geek ghetto" ( http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=209 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=209 )Do you all remember how terrible it was with the Gestapo beating down our doors? Oh wait. -_- ESR is just full of himself like many other public figures. That said, The Art of Unix Programming was actually a surprisingly good book. I think someone must have edited all the crazy out of it.