4 ms·

I'm not a fan of some of the comments about the man posting, you'd think the developer community would be above "you look like frankenstein" and "your english s

I'm not a fan of some of the comments about the man posting, you'd think the developer community would be above "you look like frankenstein" and "your english sucks."

danso 15y ago
I wonder if his poor English (though not as poor as my Russian) contributed to him not being taken seriously? Glad to see he was reinstated...the guy seems almost fanatical in his devotion to GH. It is almost reassuring that the. If was so easy to exploit, because it means that a nonchalant hacker could bring it to mass attention...I'd hate to think of what havoc a dedicated miscreant could've sown in a week. I recently taught a group of neophytes how to use the web inspector, and used the example of altering a form merely to demonstrate the malleability of a webpage. I told them "this is just a parlor trick, don't think that it'll actually work..."
- chrisguitarguy 15y ago
  > I wonder if his poor English [...] contributed to him not being taken seriously? I'd say that's very likely the case. Unfortunate, but, in some ways, understandable. If a person is not able to articulate an issue effectively dismissing them becomes too easy. We all do it.
  - etcet 15y ago
    "In class - in my English class - you will have to master and write in Standard Written English, which we might just as well call "Standard White English" because it was developed by white people and is used by white people, especially educated, powerful white people. [RESPONSES at this point vary too widely to standardize.] I'm respecting you enough here to give you what I believe is the straight truth. In this country, SWE is perceived as the dialect of education and intelligence and power and prestige, and anybody of any race, ethnicity, religion, or gender who wants to succeed in American culture has got to be able to use SWE. This is just How It Is. You can be glad about it or sad about it or deeply pissed off. You can believe it's racist and unfair and decide right here and now to spend every waking minute of your adult life arguing against it, and maybe you should, but I'll tell you something - if you ever want those arguments to get listened to and taken seriously, you're going to have to communicate them in SWE, because SWE is the dialect our nation uses to talk to itself... And [STUDENT'S NAME], you're going to learn to use it... because I am going to make you." - David Foster Wallace, Authority and American Usage
    - Jach 15y ago
      "4. If you don't have functional English, learn it. "As an American and native English-speaker myself, I have previously been reluctant to suggest this, lest it be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism. But several native speakers of other languages have urged me to point out that English is the working language of the hacker culture and the Internet, and that you will need to know it to function in the hacker community. "Back around 1991 I learned that many hackers who have English as a second language use it in technical discussions even when they share a birth tongue; it was reported to me at the time that English has a richer technical vocabulary than any other language and is therefore simply a better tool for the job. For similar reasons, translations of technical books written in English are often unsatisfactory (when they get done at all). "Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of developers for Linux. It's an example worth following. "Being a native English-speaker does not guarantee that you have language skills good enough to function as a hacker. If your writing is semi-literate, ungrammatical, and riddled with misspellings, many hackers (including myself) will tend to ignore you. While sloppy writing does not invariably mean sloppy thinking, we've generally found the correlation to be strong--and we have no use for sloppy thinkers. If you can't yet write competently, learn to." --Eric S. Raymond, How To Become A Hacker http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html Not that being a "Rails Rockstar" necessarily implies being a Hacker--what I like about your quote is that it shows the phenomenon is everywhere. One nice thing for programmers though is that with online text communications you can hide a thick accent that would otherwise be held against you even if what you speak is grammatically perfect.
      - muyuu 15y ago
        Some people are simply not good at languages, while at the same time they are extremely skilled coders. I know many people like this, in particular Japanese, Chinese and Russian-speaking coders. It's apparently quite a task to learn proper English when your native language is one of these and you weren't exposed to English soon enough. Dismissing this guy because of his poor English is plain and simply xenophobic prejudice. In this case it came back to the Rails/Github guys and bit them in the ass.
sophacles 15y ago
I agree with your sentiment, there is no need to insult the guy on such a personal basis. Unfortunately all communities are full of people, some of whom will respond like this to situations. It is no excuse, and I don't condone the behavior. I do wonder tho, if it isn't because people are scared of their software being hacked. People frequently respond poorly to fear. What is going on here? I think the fear people have is that this attack is laughably simple, but at the same time, was not noticed for a long time. It says something about complexity, all the interlocking parts may have simple problems that are hidden by the abstract models used. It reminds us that the law of unintended consequences are always in effect, and we need to really think out what we are doing, even if the tests all pass. It shows us that even good, well respected software is vulnerable. And it makes us wonder what we have done to open security holes and what is lurking in our code. No one wants to be responsible for such a thing, and it is not pleasant to think about potential consequences of them.
mkramlich 15y ago
Keep in mind that "on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." In other words, some commentators on any website may be children or teenagers.
smsm42 15y ago
Well, expecting popular blog with open anon access not to have trolls is rather naive. The reality is, however sad it seems, that there are thousands of people out there that enjoy this exactly type of behavior. And some of them, oh horror, may know how to program and read the same blogs normal people do. And until technology allows to find and punch somebody in the face by IP, they'll be around. They don't represent any community, no more that a bird crapping on your car represents the local community.
muyuu 15y ago
Textbook case of inferiority complex.

I'm not a fan of some of the comments about the man posting, you'd think the developer community would be above "you look like frankenstein" and "your english sucks."

danso 15y ago

I wonder if his poor English (though not as poor as my Russian) contributed to him not being taken seriously? Glad to see he was reinstated...the guy seems almost fanatical in his devotion to GH. It is almost reassuring that the. If was so easy to exploit, because it means that a nonchalant hacker could bring it to mass attention...I'd hate to think of what havoc a dedicated miscreant could've sown in a week. I recently taught a group of neophytes how to use the web inspector, and used the example of altering a form merely to demonstrate the malleability of a webpage. I told them "this is just a parlor trick, don't think that it'll actually work..."

chrisguitarguy 15y ago
> I wonder if his poor English [...] contributed to him not being taken seriously? I'd say that's very likely the case. Unfortunate, but, in some ways, understandable. If a person is not able to articulate an issue effectively dismissing them becomes too easy. We all do it.
- etcet 15y ago
  "In class - in my English class - you will have to master and write in Standard Written English, which we might just as well call "Standard White English" because it was developed by white people and is used by white people, especially educated, powerful white people. [RESPONSES at this point vary too widely to standardize.] I'm respecting you enough here to give you what I believe is the straight truth. In this country, SWE is perceived as the dialect of education and intelligence and power and prestige, and anybody of any race, ethnicity, religion, or gender who wants to succeed in American culture has got to be able to use SWE. This is just How It Is. You can be glad about it or sad about it or deeply pissed off. You can believe it's racist and unfair and decide right here and now to spend every waking minute of your adult life arguing against it, and maybe you should, but I'll tell you something - if you ever want those arguments to get listened to and taken seriously, you're going to have to communicate them in SWE, because SWE is the dialect our nation uses to talk to itself... And [STUDENT'S NAME], you're going to learn to use it... because I am going to make you." - David Foster Wallace, Authority and American Usage
  - Jach 15y ago
    "4. If you don't have functional English, learn it. "As an American and native English-speaker myself, I have previously been reluctant to suggest this, lest it be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism. But several native speakers of other languages have urged me to point out that English is the working language of the hacker culture and the Internet, and that you will need to know it to function in the hacker community. "Back around 1991 I learned that many hackers who have English as a second language use it in technical discussions even when they share a birth tongue; it was reported to me at the time that English has a richer technical vocabulary than any other language and is therefore simply a better tool for the job. For similar reasons, translations of technical books written in English are often unsatisfactory (when they get done at all). "Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of developers for Linux. It's an example worth following. "Being a native English-speaker does not guarantee that you have language skills good enough to function as a hacker. If your writing is semi-literate, ungrammatical, and riddled with misspellings, many hackers (including myself) will tend to ignore you. While sloppy writing does not invariably mean sloppy thinking, we've generally found the correlation to be strong--and we have no use for sloppy thinkers. If you can't yet write competently, learn to." --Eric S. Raymond, How To Become A Hacker http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html Not that being a "Rails Rockstar" necessarily implies being a Hacker--what I like about your quote is that it shows the phenomenon is everywhere. One nice thing for programmers though is that with online text communications you can hide a thick accent that would otherwise be held against you even if what you speak is grammatically perfect.
    - muyuu 15y ago
      Some people are simply not good at languages, while at the same time they are extremely skilled coders. I know many people like this, in particular Japanese, Chinese and Russian-speaking coders. It's apparently quite a task to learn proper English when your native language is one of these and you weren't exposed to English soon enough. Dismissing this guy because of his poor English is plain and simply xenophobic prejudice. In this case it came back to the Rails/Github guys and bit them in the ass.

sophacles 15y ago

I agree with your sentiment, there is no need to insult the guy on such a personal basis. Unfortunately all communities are full of people, some of whom will respond like this to situations. It is no excuse, and I don't condone the behavior. I do wonder tho, if it isn't because people are scared of their software being hacked. People frequently respond poorly to fear. What is going on here? I think the fear people have is that this attack is laughably simple, but at the same time, was not noticed for a long time. It says something about complexity, all the interlocking parts may have simple problems that are hidden by the abstract models used. It reminds us that the law of unintended consequences are always in effect, and we need to really think out what we are doing, even if the tests all pass. It shows us that even good, well respected software is vulnerable. And it makes us wonder what we have done to open security holes and what is lurking in our code. No one wants to be responsible for such a thing, and it is not pleasant to think about potential consequences of them.

mkramlich 15y ago

Keep in mind that "on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." In other words, some commentators on any website may be children or teenagers.

smsm42 15y ago

Well, expecting popular blog with open anon access not to have trolls is rather naive. The reality is, however sad it seems, that there are thousands of people out there that enjoy this exactly type of behavior. And some of them, oh horror, may know how to program and read the same blogs normal people do. And until technology allows to find and punch somebody in the face by IP, they'll be around. They don't represent any community, no more that a bird crapping on your car represents the local community.

muyuu 15y ago

Textbook case of inferiority complex.