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Most people agree with this. The actual challenge is to discern real rules from superficial bullshit. That is a level of criticality many people do not possess

Most people agree with this. The actual challenge is to discern real rules from superficial bullshit. That is a level of criticality many people do not possess and some find hostile or disgusting.

dralley 5y ago
Raymond Hettinger talks about this in "Beyond PEP8", which is one of my favorite conference talks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-BqAjZb8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-BqAjZb8M
- sturadnidge 5y ago
  That talk is fantastic, and I don’t even write Python. Thanks for sharing!
- justin_oaks 5y ago
  That's a great talk. Thanks for sharing it. He does well to explain how PEP 8 can be good but some people focus on it because they may not have experience to contribute otherwise.
kqr 5y ago
Another challenge is that it's very easy to think you understand the rationale behind the rules well before you actually grok them.
- ludamad 5y ago
  At work I learned a theoretical set of best practices for the software we integrate with. I was very enthusiastic about applying them. This caused me to learn the real set of best practices, mostly leaning on the stuff that works most robustly (even to recreate other features, usually ones that prove inflexible when pushed).
quetzthecoatl 5y ago
especially when there are too many such rule lists often contridicting with each other. Finding the right list becomes the key for someone (beginner to a domain) who has to follow the rules. That's just luck.
- austincheney 5y ago
  It’s even more implicit than that. For example there are social criteria and considerations of vanity. Another example is that I recently wrote a comment that received greater than 10 votes and was flagged (I presume by users) almost immediately. The comment was thus both commonly agreeable (perhaps people could empathize to the subject matter) and yet a violation of social norms. An unspoken social rule violation. That comment also received contradictory responses: I’m not woke, but.... Contradictory responses are generally an explicit mention of internal confusion where the person cannot even agree with themselves on social conformance: I’m not lying, but.... If it’s not complete bullshit then don’t posture with a qualifier.

Most people agree with this. The actual challenge is to discern real rules from superficial bullshit. That is a level of criticality many people do not possess and some find hostile or disgusting.

dralley 5y ago

Raymond Hettinger talks about this in "Beyond PEP8", which is one of my favorite conference talks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-BqAjZb8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-BqAjZb8M

sturadnidge 5y ago
That talk is fantastic, and I don’t even write Python. Thanks for sharing!
justin_oaks 5y ago
That's a great talk. Thanks for sharing it. He does well to explain how PEP 8 can be good but some people focus on it because they may not have experience to contribute otherwise.

kqr 5y ago

Another challenge is that it's very easy to think you understand the rationale behind the rules well before you actually grok them.

ludamad 5y ago
At work I learned a theoretical set of best practices for the software we integrate with. I was very enthusiastic about applying them. This caused me to learn the real set of best practices, mostly leaning on the stuff that works most robustly (even to recreate other features, usually ones that prove inflexible when pushed).

quetzthecoatl 5y ago

especially when there are too many such rule lists often contridicting with each other. Finding the right list becomes the key for someone (beginner to a domain) who has to follow the rules. That's just luck.

austincheney 5y ago
It’s even more implicit than that. For example there are social criteria and considerations of vanity. Another example is that I recently wrote a comment that received greater than 10 votes and was flagged (I presume by users) almost immediately. The comment was thus both commonly agreeable (perhaps people could empathize to the subject matter) and yet a violation of social norms. An unspoken social rule violation. That comment also received contradictory responses: I’m not woke, but.... Contradictory responses are generally an explicit mention of internal confusion where the person cannot even agree with themselves on social conformance: I’m not lying, but.... If it’s not complete bullshit then don’t posture with a qualifier.