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> Nowadays, I don’t actually like Hacker News that much, but back then, just seeing yourself up there and knowing, “Hey, this is a place where people know, oh,

> Nowadays, I don’t actually like Hacker News that much, but back then, just seeing yourself up there and knowing, “Hey, this is a place where people know, oh, it’s a big deal you get on Hacker News.” Interesting!

ushakov 3y ago
I hear this often from some OSS startup folks. They consider this place toxic and are scared about commenters ruining their product’s reputation
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  They aren’t wrong.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  interesting. I hear alot about how HN gives much needed boost to public profile and such too. I wonder if its how its submitted that matters. Things that organically end up on the front page face a bit less scrunity overall than things that are posted as "Show HN" in my ancedotal view
- lloydatkinson 3y ago
  Well, the Vue team aren't friendly to criticism of Vue. See the 2->3 migration for starters.
  - addicted 3y ago
    The problem with the criticism of any major effort of that sort (which you saw in python2->python3 as well), is that any major effort will involve tradeoffs, it will involve mistakes, it will involve bad decisions, and it will involve good decisions that were poorly executed. That’s absolutely normal. There is no major effort ever in the history of software that was absolutely perfect. But the most upvoted comments almost always tend to be focused on those specific mistakes/tradeoffs to the detriment of the larger goal and effort. They completely decontextualize the criticism from the fact that it may be a trade off or just a simple mistake. And honestly, if I was to submit my closed source project and saw those criticism, I wouldn’t like it, but I could at least understand it. But it must be ridiculously frustrating for Open Source software developers to have put in all this effort and then have everyone Monday morning QB on HN once the work has been largely completed when they could as easily have gone to the project GitHub or community pages and shared their feedback constructively when it actually mattered and could have had an impact on the direction of the product.
  - conradfr 3y ago
    I don't follow the development closely so maybe you are right but in the end they kept both APIs and did a great job with the compatibility layer in 3.1 to help migrate from v2. I don't know many projects which would have done that.
    - dmix 3y ago
      He addresses this in the interview: Evan: They’re like, “Oh, Vue has scalability issues. We have a huge Vue product. We have these huge components that nobody wants to touch anymore. We don’t know how to extract and reuse things. TypeScript support isn’t great.” Adam: So they started Vue 3, right? A breaking change. Vue had to stay relevant. People were looking for a scalable, if more complex, framework. Expectations had changed. Evan: They’re like, “Hey. You’re taking away the very reason we love Vue, and it’s not going to be Vue anymore.” In a way, our early user base are mostly people who preferred lightweight solutions, simple interactions, simple apps. So when we propose solutions to address these more advanced cases, these simple case users get pissed off because they’re like, “Don’t touch my framework. I don’t want to work that way.” “I don’t care about these complex cases. Why are you adding these complex APIs? Why are you making things more complicated?” But at the same time, these complex case users are like, “I won’t use Vue if it stays only for simple use cases because it shows it doesn’t scale. We are gonna just migrate to React, migrate to Angular.” [discussion continues for a while https://corecursive.com/vue-with-evan-you/#composition-api https://corecursive.com/vue-with-evan-you/#composition-api]
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        That is actually exactly why I migrated off Vue and onto React. I originally used Vue because React had some copyright issues that gave Facebook the right to revoke your license if you sued them, or something to that effect. But once they removed that and added hooks, and Vue was starting to move to the composition API, I thought, what the hell, I will just use the most popular option and switched to React, never looked back since. TypeScript support is awesome, there aren't any signals or two way data binding, and all of the most popular libraries are written for React while few are written for cross-framework compatibility.
      - 3y ago
- addicted 3y ago
  I’m not surprised. I’m not a major OSS contributor of any sort, but I am a lead of a closed source product within my company, and if I got the kind of pointless destructive criticism that usually makes it to the top of HN comments on something my team and I worked hard to create it would be beyond frustrating. The only thing that would make it tolerable was the fact that at least I got paid to do this. I can’t even imagine how terrible it must feel as an OSS contributor or leader who is putting all their effort out there in the open for anyone to see and use and they are deluged by the most awful petty criticisms. I really think HN comments probably need some sort of “feedback” tab, where the people who are providing what they think is constructive feedback can put their comments in, so the OSS software developers/contributors can choose to tackle the feedback when they are in the mindset to do so.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    As someone who has launched countless of products, services, demos and more on HN (for almost two decades now) and other places, you can't really let those overly negative comments get to you. And it happens everywhere, not just on HN, even though people here tend to try to hit your soft spots, for some reason. But at least I've found that the overly negative comments on HN has at least a tiny bit of feedback one could learn from, compared to other platforms where it's just outright vile comments with zero feedback one could use. So yeah, HN can be ruthless, but so is the rest of the internet. At least here there is a tiny bit of feedback mixed in, and usually the rest of the comments have something insightful to say.
- KaoruAoiShiho 3y ago
  This is true but wasn't this always the case, rather than a recent development? The comments tend to trend absurdly negative on minor criticism. But I remember the same thing 10 years ago for the releases of dropbox and the like, always some inane complaints that disregard the massive benefits.
  - steve_adams_86 3y ago
    I could make this in a weekend. Also, yeah, when something isn’t perfect and someone latches onto the how and why it’s such an awful design or decision, how incompetent, I wouldn’t trust my business to someone who operates like this, etc. It can be brutal. I still prefer HN to many other places on the internet, but sometimes critique here is excessively negative and not constructive at all. Even so, it’s not all bad. I wouldn’t post my personal projects here, though.
    - divbzero 3y ago
      Yes, I think creators who see negative comments here should try to internalize some mental jujitsu: If you are being criticized excessively, you’ve created something good enough to attract attention and be taken seriously.

ushakov 3y ago

I hear this often from some OSS startup folks. They consider this place toxic and are scared about commenters ruining their product’s reputation

throwaway2990 3y ago
They aren’t wrong.
no_wizard 3y ago
interesting. I hear alot about how HN gives much needed boost to public profile and such too. I wonder if its how its submitted that matters. Things that organically end up on the front page face a bit less scrunity overall than things that are posted as "Show HN" in my ancedotal view
lloydatkinson 3y ago
Well, the Vue team aren't friendly to criticism of Vue. See the 2->3 migration for starters.
- addicted 3y ago
  The problem with the criticism of any major effort of that sort (which you saw in python2->python3 as well), is that any major effort will involve tradeoffs, it will involve mistakes, it will involve bad decisions, and it will involve good decisions that were poorly executed. That’s absolutely normal. There is no major effort ever in the history of software that was absolutely perfect. But the most upvoted comments almost always tend to be focused on those specific mistakes/tradeoffs to the detriment of the larger goal and effort. They completely decontextualize the criticism from the fact that it may be a trade off or just a simple mistake. And honestly, if I was to submit my closed source project and saw those criticism, I wouldn’t like it, but I could at least understand it. But it must be ridiculously frustrating for Open Source software developers to have put in all this effort and then have everyone Monday morning QB on HN once the work has been largely completed when they could as easily have gone to the project GitHub or community pages and shared their feedback constructively when it actually mattered and could have had an impact on the direction of the product.
- conradfr 3y ago
  I don't follow the development closely so maybe you are right but in the end they kept both APIs and did a great job with the compatibility layer in 3.1 to help migrate from v2. I don't know many projects which would have done that.
  - dmix 3y ago
    He addresses this in the interview: Evan: They’re like, “Oh, Vue has scalability issues. We have a huge Vue product. We have these huge components that nobody wants to touch anymore. We don’t know how to extract and reuse things. TypeScript support isn’t great.” Adam: So they started Vue 3, right? A breaking change. Vue had to stay relevant. People were looking for a scalable, if more complex, framework. Expectations had changed. Evan: They’re like, “Hey. You’re taking away the very reason we love Vue, and it’s not going to be Vue anymore.” In a way, our early user base are mostly people who preferred lightweight solutions, simple interactions, simple apps. So when we propose solutions to address these more advanced cases, these simple case users get pissed off because they’re like, “Don’t touch my framework. I don’t want to work that way.” “I don’t care about these complex cases. Why are you adding these complex APIs? Why are you making things more complicated?” But at the same time, these complex case users are like, “I won’t use Vue if it stays only for simple use cases because it shows it doesn’t scale. We are gonna just migrate to React, migrate to Angular.” [discussion continues for a while https://corecursive.com/vue-with-evan-you/#composition-api https://corecursive.com/vue-with-evan-you/#composition-api]
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      That is actually exactly why I migrated off Vue and onto React. I originally used Vue because React had some copyright issues that gave Facebook the right to revoke your license if you sued them, or something to that effect. But once they removed that and added hooks, and Vue was starting to move to the composition API, I thought, what the hell, I will just use the most popular option and switched to React, never looked back since. TypeScript support is awesome, there aren't any signals or two way data binding, and all of the most popular libraries are written for React while few are written for cross-framework compatibility.
    - 3y ago
addicted 3y ago
I’m not surprised. I’m not a major OSS contributor of any sort, but I am a lead of a closed source product within my company, and if I got the kind of pointless destructive criticism that usually makes it to the top of HN comments on something my team and I worked hard to create it would be beyond frustrating. The only thing that would make it tolerable was the fact that at least I got paid to do this. I can’t even imagine how terrible it must feel as an OSS contributor or leader who is putting all their effort out there in the open for anyone to see and use and they are deluged by the most awful petty criticisms. I really think HN comments probably need some sort of “feedback” tab, where the people who are providing what they think is constructive feedback can put their comments in, so the OSS software developers/contributors can choose to tackle the feedback when they are in the mindset to do so.
- capableweb 3y ago
  As someone who has launched countless of products, services, demos and more on HN (for almost two decades now) and other places, you can't really let those overly negative comments get to you. And it happens everywhere, not just on HN, even though people here tend to try to hit your soft spots, for some reason. But at least I've found that the overly negative comments on HN has at least a tiny bit of feedback one could learn from, compared to other platforms where it's just outright vile comments with zero feedback one could use. So yeah, HN can be ruthless, but so is the rest of the internet. At least here there is a tiny bit of feedback mixed in, and usually the rest of the comments have something insightful to say.
KaoruAoiShiho 3y ago
This is true but wasn't this always the case, rather than a recent development? The comments tend to trend absurdly negative on minor criticism. But I remember the same thing 10 years ago for the releases of dropbox and the like, always some inane complaints that disregard the massive benefits.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  I could make this in a weekend. Also, yeah, when something isn’t perfect and someone latches onto the how and why it’s such an awful design or decision, how incompetent, I wouldn’t trust my business to someone who operates like this, etc. It can be brutal. I still prefer HN to many other places on the internet, but sometimes critique here is excessively negative and not constructive at all. Even so, it’s not all bad. I wouldn’t post my personal projects here, though.
  - divbzero 3y ago
    Yes, I think creators who see negative comments here should try to internalize some mental jujitsu: If you are being criticized excessively, you’ve created something good enough to attract attention and be taken seriously.