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>Be careful with anyone with a take that says some technology is 100% bad always. Given enough experience / skill you can make any technology fairly enjoyable s

>Be careful with anyone with a take that says some technology is 100% bad always. Given enough experience / skill you can make any technology fairly enjoyable so I've only ever seen mixed reactions at worst from people giving things a fair try. So what does this mean? You're saying that in the universe we live in there is absolutely nothing that is 100% bad always. Everything is good for something? There is no concept of bad or obsolete things because it's all good for something? Let's restrict this to programming languages and frameworks and apis. Are you saying that in the universe of ALL programming languages, ALL frameworks and all APIs, None of them are at all bad and they are all good for something? I don't agree with this sentiment at all. In fact I think it's a sign of two possibilities: 1. that the person saying it is highly biased and unable to detect things that are genuinely bad. 2. The person saying it is just being temporarily illogical, there are clearly things in the programming world that are bad. He knows this but is so biased that he's incapable of processing this concept while promoting his favorite language/api/framework. Scenario 2 is the most likely scenario here. Not saying graphQL is bad. But to love graphQL so much as to say Nothing in the universe is actually bad? Let's be real, I am not against graphQL. However you cannot actually say that people against graphQL have invalid opinions because there is nothing in the programming universe that is definitively bad. This argument does not make any sense at all.

Kaze404 4y ago
The point is that “bad” isn’t a useful descriptor of anything regarding their real-life applications, because it simply doesn’t mean anything. Without more context, saying something is bad is just saying you dislike it with intent to present it as objective rather than subjective. For example: 1) “Haskell is bad because it’s too theoretical” 2) “Haskell is bad in corporate environments, as its roots in mathematical and academia make it harder for people to get productive with it compared to something like Java or C#” The difference is clear. In my opinion it’s best if people who care about what they’re saying avoids #1, and instead frames their criticism like in #2. Note: those examples don’t reflect my actual opinion on Haskell, it’s just something I came up with while writing this.
- deltasevennine 4y ago
  Hard disagree. >The point is that “bad” isn’t a useful descriptor of anything regarding their real-life applications, because it simply doesn’t mean anything. This is just a complicated way of saying "Bad things have no meaning and don't exist in the universe." Without getting too pedantic, in general, nobody agrees with this concept. Sure if you get pedantic you may find a couple people in this world who enjoy punching themselves in the face, but in general the overwhelming majority agree that punching yourself in the face is a pretty bad thing. Note: Punching yourself in the face is just an example of a universally "bad" thing. I'm not personally against punching yourself in the face, it's just something I came up with while writing this.
  - Kaze404 4y ago
    Maybe I failed to express myself properly, but my point is that saying “X is bad.” (emphasis on the period) is not really saying anything. It’s much more productive if you explain why, how and in what environment X is bad, either before or after, like I did in example #2. In my experience when someone says “X is bad”, the response is often either “haha” (which the subject then changes), or “why” (which leads to person #1 actually saying what they want to say). I’m personally not interested in someone’s remarks about some technology completely devoid of context or nuance, and would rather hear about their opinion on such technology in tangible scenarios.
    - deltasevennine 4y ago
      >Maybe I failed to express myself properly, but my point is that saying “X is bad.” (emphasis on the period) is not really saying anything. This logic also works for "X is good." or "GraphQL is good". This doesn't really say anything either and is an equally garbage statement following your logic. But your biases focus on the "bad" because you have a bias towards GraphQL. Either way I don't agree. Saying something like criminals are bad is not an invalid statement. If you want an explanation you can ask for it. If you don't care to know about the explanation then you don't need to ask for it. But just because somebody makes a statement without an explanation doesn't automatically make it invalid. For example "The plane is about to crash, please pull up." This is a statement without an explanation (emphasis on the period). Should I demand an explanation or comply without one? In your words, was this statement "really saying anything?" Yes it was. When you come to threads on HN it's mostly people looking for confirmation of their biases. They don't realize it, but almost everyone is doing this. If you weren't biased you would ask for deeper explanations. You would try to unravel the other persons reasoning and understand it in such a way so that you find a mistake in his understanding or your own. That's mainly why I'm here, but this thread is littered with posts following the same logical path as you.

Kaze404 4y ago

The point is that “bad” isn’t a useful descriptor of anything regarding their real-life applications, because it simply doesn’t mean anything. Without more context, saying something is bad is just saying you dislike it with intent to present it as objective rather than subjective. For example: 1) “Haskell is bad because it’s too theoretical” 2) “Haskell is bad in corporate environments, as its roots in mathematical and academia make it harder for people to get productive with it compared to something like Java or C#” The difference is clear. In my opinion it’s best if people who care about what they’re saying avoids #1, and instead frames their criticism like in #2. Note: those examples don’t reflect my actual opinion on Haskell, it’s just something I came up with while writing this.

deltasevennine 4y ago
Hard disagree. >The point is that “bad” isn’t a useful descriptor of anything regarding their real-life applications, because it simply doesn’t mean anything. This is just a complicated way of saying "Bad things have no meaning and don't exist in the universe." Without getting too pedantic, in general, nobody agrees with this concept. Sure if you get pedantic you may find a couple people in this world who enjoy punching themselves in the face, but in general the overwhelming majority agree that punching yourself in the face is a pretty bad thing. Note: Punching yourself in the face is just an example of a universally "bad" thing. I'm not personally against punching yourself in the face, it's just something I came up with while writing this.
- Kaze404 4y ago
  Maybe I failed to express myself properly, but my point is that saying “X is bad.” (emphasis on the period) is not really saying anything. It’s much more productive if you explain why, how and in what environment X is bad, either before or after, like I did in example #2. In my experience when someone says “X is bad”, the response is often either “haha” (which the subject then changes), or “why” (which leads to person #1 actually saying what they want to say). I’m personally not interested in someone’s remarks about some technology completely devoid of context or nuance, and would rather hear about their opinion on such technology in tangible scenarios.
  - deltasevennine 4y ago
    >Maybe I failed to express myself properly, but my point is that saying “X is bad.” (emphasis on the period) is not really saying anything. This logic also works for "X is good." or "GraphQL is good". This doesn't really say anything either and is an equally garbage statement following your logic. But your biases focus on the "bad" because you have a bias towards GraphQL. Either way I don't agree. Saying something like criminals are bad is not an invalid statement. If you want an explanation you can ask for it. If you don't care to know about the explanation then you don't need to ask for it. But just because somebody makes a statement without an explanation doesn't automatically make it invalid. For example "The plane is about to crash, please pull up." This is a statement without an explanation (emphasis on the period). Should I demand an explanation or comply without one? In your words, was this statement "really saying anything?" Yes it was. When you come to threads on HN it's mostly people looking for confirmation of their biases. They don't realize it, but almost everyone is doing this. If you weren't biased you would ask for deeper explanations. You would try to unravel the other persons reasoning and understand it in such a way so that you find a mistake in his understanding or your own. That's mainly why I'm here, but this thread is littered with posts following the same logical path as you.