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Beautiful Racket was one of the sites that helped me learn the language/toolset, along with HTDP, by Felleisen. This is troubling, but the lack of detail and c

by desine 5y ago

Beautiful Racket was one of the sites that helped me learn the language/toolset, along with HTDP, by Felleisen. This is troubling, but the lack of detail and context is also troubling. I would wager most of us in the CS community have experienced personalities that deliver harsh criticism. The types of people that often don't realize how vicious their tone comes across. I also have no doubt that I on occasion have been more abrasive than I intended to. There's many in this community that are "on the spectrum", but there's an even broader spectrum that exists in programmers of people that are too in their own heads, or just not properly socially adjusted, with no medical definition. I don't wish to make excuses for bad behavior, but there's also the potential cultural differences of Felleisen being German, and the stress involved with trying to organize a convention. Even after being degraded by Felleisen, Butterick received a high rating for his teaching by Felleisen? This sounds like a stereotypically "cold" German personality and and a soft kind American personality just generating friction. I've seen it other times within my teams (without the specifically German cultural aspect); instances where one abrasive person doesn't realize how much they've affected one softer, kinder person. And instances where a sensitive person (not even overly-so) feels personally slighted by what was just a bad mood or an bad moment. I'm disappointed to hear that a great Racket contributor feels wronged and slighted, especially to the point of reducing his passion for contributing to the project. But the linked post doesn't give me enough to go to my pitchfork closet either. I guess it's something to keep an eye on for other signs

jgwil2 5y ago
> Even after being degraded by Felleisen, Butterick received a high rating for his teaching by Felleisen? I believe you've misunderstood a sentence from the article. The author meant he received higher ratings than all other teachers, including Felleisen, from students, not that Felleisen himself rated the author's teaching highly.
- desine 5y ago
  Ah, you're right, thank you. That does change the context a bit.
CoastalCoder 5y ago
> Even after being degraded by Felleisen, Butterick received a high rating for his teaching by Felleisen? I think you may have misread this part: "At the end, the students gave me the best evaluation scores of all the instructors—Felleisen included."
parenwielder 5y ago
Firstly, the high rating that Butterick received for his teaching (the highest of all the instructors) was given by the students, not Matthias. Secondly, Matthias has lived in the United States for virtually his entire adult life. Longer than probably the majority of the posters here have been alive. The issue is not one of cultural differences or a misunderstanding. Matthias behaves this way consistently, is unapologetic for it, and when pressed will explain that his "challenging behavior" (i.e. abuse) is some kind of test of your ideas, your willpower, or your capacity for success.
- desine 5y ago
  >Matthias behaves this way consistently, is unapologetic for it, and when pressed will explain that his "challenging behavior" (i.e. abuse) is some kind of test of your ideas, your willpower, or your capacity for success. This would also change the context, but I haven't heard anything else about this, which again is why I'm deciding to pay more attention, but not quite ready to demand any sort of community uprising against him.
  - parenwielder 5y ago
    Frankly, if you haven't heard anything about it, it's because you are not a part of the community that Matthias is in (whether that be Racket or Academic Programming Languages). It's very far from a secret, though obviously people's individual tolerance for his behavior varies.
    - desine 5y ago
      Yeah I just started picking up Lisp with SICP during the lockdown. AFAIK this is the first time it's hit the front of HN or any other pages I follow
  - watwut 5y ago
    So, you know nothing about the situation, but are confident to claim that it is all misunderstanding, that Matthew Butterick is essentially not understanding situation and so on. It is unfair to Matthew Butterick and to anyone in his situation.
watwut 5y ago
> I would wager most of us in the CS community have experienced personalities that deliver harsh criticism. The types of people that often don't realize how vicious their tone comes across. Often it is actually content that is bad and not just tone. Also, not every aggressive jerk has autism. Many autists do put a lot of work into not be assholes. Where they fail, they also do comparatively much less harm then neurotypocal person who takes pleasure in mistreating you.
- desine 5y ago
  Yes, agreed, for the most part, but it's also kind of painting with broad strokes. Those of us on the spectrum do not approach social interactions with the same mental framework as people without ASD. But from that rather large group one could easily divide groups of "I realize I am different and I must put an effort into pleasing others" personalities, and "I realize I am different but it does not matter as long as I am correct" personalities, among many others. ASD being described as a spectrum is accurate - the point where I don't think it should even all fall under one umbrella. My point was only that there's a statistically notable number of ASD people in the computation fields, and there's a lot of anti-social personalities in the world, inlcuding CS, without ASD. Apologies if it came off as painting people with autism as not caring.

by desine 5y ago

jgwil2 5y ago

> Even after being degraded by Felleisen, Butterick received a high rating for his teaching by Felleisen? I believe you've misunderstood a sentence from the article. The author meant he received higher ratings than all other teachers, including Felleisen, from students, not that Felleisen himself rated the author's teaching highly.

desine 5y ago
Ah, you're right, thank you. That does change the context a bit.

CoastalCoder 5y ago

> Even after being degraded by Felleisen, Butterick received a high rating for his teaching by Felleisen? I think you may have misread this part: "At the end, the students gave me the best evaluation scores of all the instructors—Felleisen included."

parenwielder 5y ago

Firstly, the high rating that Butterick received for his teaching (the highest of all the instructors) was given by the students, not Matthias. Secondly, Matthias has lived in the United States for virtually his entire adult life. Longer than probably the majority of the posters here have been alive. The issue is not one of cultural differences or a misunderstanding. Matthias behaves this way consistently, is unapologetic for it, and when pressed will explain that his "challenging behavior" (i.e. abuse) is some kind of test of your ideas, your willpower, or your capacity for success.

desine 5y ago
>Matthias behaves this way consistently, is unapologetic for it, and when pressed will explain that his "challenging behavior" (i.e. abuse) is some kind of test of your ideas, your willpower, or your capacity for success. This would also change the context, but I haven't heard anything else about this, which again is why I'm deciding to pay more attention, but not quite ready to demand any sort of community uprising against him.
- parenwielder 5y ago
  Frankly, if you haven't heard anything about it, it's because you are not a part of the community that Matthias is in (whether that be Racket or Academic Programming Languages). It's very far from a secret, though obviously people's individual tolerance for his behavior varies.
  - desine 5y ago
    Yeah I just started picking up Lisp with SICP during the lockdown. AFAIK this is the first time it's hit the front of HN or any other pages I follow
- watwut 5y ago
  So, you know nothing about the situation, but are confident to claim that it is all misunderstanding, that Matthew Butterick is essentially not understanding situation and so on. It is unfair to Matthew Butterick and to anyone in his situation.

watwut 5y ago

> I would wager most of us in the CS community have experienced personalities that deliver harsh criticism. The types of people that often don't realize how vicious their tone comes across. Often it is actually content that is bad and not just tone. Also, not every aggressive jerk has autism. Many autists do put a lot of work into not be assholes. Where they fail, they also do comparatively much less harm then neurotypocal person who takes pleasure in mistreating you.

desine 5y ago
Yes, agreed, for the most part, but it's also kind of painting with broad strokes. Those of us on the spectrum do not approach social interactions with the same mental framework as people without ASD. But from that rather large group one could easily divide groups of "I realize I am different and I must put an effort into pleasing others" personalities, and "I realize I am different but it does not matter as long as I am correct" personalities, among many others. ASD being described as a spectrum is accurate - the point where I don't think it should even all fall under one umbrella. My point was only that there's a statistically notable number of ASD people in the computation fields, and there's a lot of anti-social personalities in the world, inlcuding CS, without ASD. Apologies if it came off as painting people with autism as not caring.