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This isn't a case of promising to do something and then not meeting that promise. I certainly do that a fair amount myself, where I might promise to get to some
by burntsushi 7y ago
This isn't a case of promising to do something and then not meeting that promise. I certainly do that a fair amount myself, where I might promise to get to something but then forget about it or just generally don't achieve it. Unless you're a company providing a product, folks generally aren't going to hold that kind of stuff against you in my experience.
The issue here is that the author made claims that were just not true. As I understand it, the author has updated the presentation of the web site to be clearer, but what I remember, there were a lot of fantastical claims that winded up not being true. There's a big difference between saying, "I hope to accomplish X" and "my software does X." If you're doing the latter repeatedly and it doesn't reflect reality, then people are going to be upset. I'm totally in favor of articles like the OPs, because they prevent other people from wasting their time.
- pdimitar 7y agoAgreed. As I said in a sibling comment on the same level as yours, it's just pretty weird how V's author got relentlessly attacked while a ton of other clickbait titles never receive a single complaint. It's really strange.
- burntsushi 7y agoI've read a lot of the comments, and I don't think "relentlessly attacked" is the phrase I'd use. _Some_ folks were fairly uncharitable, but most from what I saw were flummoxed by the fact that they were mislead, and (rightfully IMO) pointed that out. Believe it or not, the combination of being blatantly mislead, open source and lots of attention on HN sites and the like, doesn't actually happen that often from what I can see. So I guess it's "strange" in the sense that's it's rare, but it totally makes sense to me. As I said, it's one thing to promise something and fail to deliver. It's another to state something as if it were true, when it's actually not. Also, clickbait titles are not even remotely in the same category as what the V author did. It's generally socially acceptable to take a creative license with titles. It's not acceptable to take creative license with precise claims about a technical project. And frankly, people (annoyingly) whine about clickbait titles all the time.
- pdimitar 7y agoWell, it seems we are on exactly the same page, just living in slightly different filter bubbles. To V's author credit, he went ahead and updated the website. Let's see if the thing gets traction in the future. It has quite ambitious goals and I remain cautiously skeptical.