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OP here. Brendan Eich is now publicly calling me a liar, though he's inexplicably failed to detail the claimed lies. I've asked him to do so. https://web.archiv

OP here. Brendan Eich is now publicly calling me a liar, though he's inexplicably failed to detail the claimed lies. I've asked him to do so. https://web.archive.org/web/20200606232839/https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1269403116740308993 https://web.archive.org/web/20200606232839/https://twitter.c...

llacb47 6y ago
You clearly have some personal vendetta against Eich and I don't think HN is the best place for it.
- kbumsik 6y ago
  > You clearly have some personal vendetta How so? I cannot see any evidence.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
chipotle_coyote 6y ago
A few months back typographer/programmer/lawyer/acerbic writer Matthew Butterick wrote an, ah, let's say pointed critique called "The Cowardice of Brave," in which he argued that Brave is neither innovative nor particularly honest: "It's just substituting one set of ads for another... for publishers, it's the same old shakedown, but run by Brave instead of Google or Facebook; for users, Brave is still going to collect data about you." It's worth a read, even if one ultimately disagrees with it. https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html Anyway, I bring it up because I linked to it from my Twitter and got a cranky response from Brendan Eich about how Butterick was wrong. Eich's response to Butterick was, like the one to you, not really a rebuttal of any of the critiques beyond "this is all wrong and inaccurate." I looked back at Eich's Twitter feed and discovered he was clearly searching for links to Butterick's article and tweeting links to his non-response. And sure, responding to criticism is normal, but that "must find all who referenced this critique and CORRECT THEM" approach is... just... it is sure a thing.
deleted 6y ago
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mthoms 6y ago
Your title is, at the very best, poorly phrased. At worst, intentionally misleading. Whether or not you approve of what they are doing, and regardless of whether what they are doing is moral - they are not "hijacking links". That practice of "hijacking links" specifically means re-writing/modifying existing links on pages that you don't control (hence the term "hijacking" - or taking what belongs to someone else). A URL typed in an address bar is not "a link". It's a typed URL. Curiously, your article seems to describe what is happening pretty accurately so it's hard to see why you chose the title you did (other than to be clickbait-y and sensationalist - you are selling a book on the topic after all). Again, that's not to excuse what they are doing. At all. But link hijacking has come to have a specific meaning and this isn't it. TL;DR - Link is short for hyper-link. There are no hyper-links involved here.
- mthoms 6y ago
  I know I'm not supposed to reference downvotes on HN. But I would like to kindly ask downvoters to explain why what I've written is incorrect.
  - fault_lines 6y ago
    Regardless of whether the terminology is technically correct, it's easily understood what the meaning is. Modifying links and modifying typed URLs are equally bad, so your claim that it is sensationalist doesn't make sense. Your post is pure pedantry that does not make any substantive contribution.
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      If he operates within a technical space (as he clearly does) surely correctness isn't too much to ask. I assumed from the title that Brave was adding affiliate codes to links on the page. That is not the case and now the author feels that he is a victim because Eich pointed this out. The author also added an inflammatory HN comment from this thread to his blog post. This doesn't make any substantive contribution and is sensational.
    - 6y ago

llacb47 6y ago

You clearly have some personal vendetta against Eich and I don't think HN is the best place for it.

kbumsik 6y ago
> You clearly have some personal vendetta How so? I cannot see any evidence.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

chipotle_coyote 6y ago

A few months back typographer/programmer/lawyer/acerbic writer Matthew Butterick wrote an, ah, let's say pointed critique called "The Cowardice of Brave," in which he argued that Brave is neither innovative nor particularly honest: "It's just substituting one set of ads for another... for publishers, it's the same old shakedown, but run by Brave instead of Google or Facebook; for users, Brave is still going to collect data about you." It's worth a read, even if one ultimately disagrees with it. https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html https://practicaltypography.com/the-cowardice-of-brave.html Anyway, I bring it up because I linked to it from my Twitter and got a cranky response from Brendan Eich about how Butterick was wrong. Eich's response to Butterick was, like the one to you, not really a rebuttal of any of the critiques beyond "this is all wrong and inaccurate." I looked back at Eich's Twitter feed and discovered he was clearly searching for links to Butterick's article and tweeting links to his non-response. And sure, responding to criticism is normal, but that "must find all who referenced this critique and CORRECT THEM" approach is... just... it is sure a thing.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mthoms 6y ago

Your title is, at the very best, poorly phrased. At worst, intentionally misleading. Whether or not you approve of what they are doing, and regardless of whether what they are doing is moral - they are not "hijacking links". That practice of "hijacking links" specifically means re-writing/modifying existing links on pages that you don't control (hence the term "hijacking" - or taking what belongs to someone else). A URL typed in an address bar is not "a link". It's a typed URL. Curiously, your article seems to describe what is happening pretty accurately so it's hard to see why you chose the title you did (other than to be clickbait-y and sensationalist - you are selling a book on the topic after all). Again, that's not to excuse what they are doing. At all. But link hijacking has come to have a specific meaning and this isn't it. TL;DR - Link is short for hyper-link. There are no hyper-links involved here.

mthoms 6y ago
I know I'm not supposed to reference downvotes on HN. But I would like to kindly ask downvoters to explain why what I've written is incorrect.
- fault_lines 6y ago
  Regardless of whether the terminology is technically correct, it's easily understood what the meaning is. Modifying links and modifying typed URLs are equally bad, so your claim that it is sensationalist doesn't make sense. Your post is pure pedantry that does not make any substantive contribution.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    If he operates within a technical space (as he clearly does) surely correctness isn't too much to ask. I assumed from the title that Brave was adding affiliate codes to links on the page. That is not the case and now the author feels that he is a victim because Eich pointed this out. The author also added an inflammatory HN comment from this thread to his blog post. This doesn't make any substantive contribution and is sensational.
  - 6y ago