4 ms·

Taste is just quality by instinct. At sufficient (and not all that long) timescales, a tasteless product will be more and more difficult to make work at all.

0xbadcafebee 3mo ago
So software engineering quality is vibes. All coding is vibe coding.
- dang 3mo ago
  Could you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying to avoid that here, and we've had to ask you this many times over the years. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - 0xbadcafebee 3mo ago
    It's not a flamewar style comment, and I think you know that. I was responding to someone's suggestion that software engineering quality is determined "by instinct" - as in, by feel, as in, vibes. It's a pointed argument about conventions of the software industry, made by repeating what the person said using different words that mean the same thing, to try to get them to see how ridiculous their argument is. You have warned me several times over the years over valid arguments I've made, with no rhyme or reason other than you personally don't agree with my views (or two people downvote it). It would be nice if you didn't throw your weight around so casually, but then again this is your world, not "the community"'s.
    - dang 3mo ago
      This is pretty representative of what I'm calling the flamewar style: > repeating what the person said using different words that mean the same thing, to try to get them to see how ridiculous their argument is Especially when you do it in a snarky way, without any clarifying information, it comes across as belittling and adds a layer of edginess that isn't needed. There's no need to "get [someone] to see how ridiculous their argument is". It's enough to offer a different view, or explain what you think a more correct view is. In fact, if the other person senses that you're trying to "get them to see how ridiculous their argument is", or indeed to "get them" to do anything at all, they usually react primarily to that quality, and only secondarily to any argument—because it breaks the implicit contract of curious conversation. This is how threads get into downward spirals.
      - 0xbadcafebee 3mo ago
        > This is pretty representative of what I'm calling the flamewar style It would be good to have a HN dictionary of terms. The normal internet definition of a flamewar is "a hostile, prolonged argument on the internet that devolves into personal attacks, insults, and aggressive behavior". I said "all coding is vibe coding". Not really a personal attack or aggressive, is it? Glad to know now there's a separate HN definition for this term though. Thank you for correcting my terrible behavior. (That was sarcasm, by the way, not an aggressive attack; I know this can be hard to interpret) > It's enough to offer a different view, or explain what you think a more correct view is. I already offered a different view, in detail, and their response was to double down on the opposite of that view. I would be reiterating the same original point. In order to express the inherent flaw in the view, I associated it to another view most people today find abhorrent. It's high risk, but I have nothing to lose, because they already disagreed with my point. > In fact, if the other person senses that you're trying to "get them to see how ridiculous their argument is", or indeed to "get them" to do anything at all, they usually react primarily to that quality, and only secondarily to any argument I mostly comment on HN to inform the casual viewer that there is a different view than that of the majority echo chamber. I don't need the person I'm replying to to agree with me. I'm trying to reach the person whose brain isn't yet shut down to logic and reason. I admit sometimes it comes off as dickish, which is regretful, but hopefully still makes my point. > because it breaks the implicit contract of curious conversation Almost nobody on the internet has agreed to such a contract. Most people's brains implicitly believe that whatever they already think is correct, unless presented with some irrefutable proof, or argued by a person they implicitly trust. Many people are curious, but not so curious as to want their mind changed by strangers. Which is why people lean on the heuristics of popularity, authority, success, etc to choose what to believe. Most people don't have curious conversations, they have disagreements and agreements. HN is the epicenter of the tech contrarian, here to disagree with any prevailing wisdom and consider any claims that don't sound like "common sense" as suspect. You've built a wall to keep out intelligence and evidence, and inflate the power of the crowd to make certain opinions seem more valid, depending on who happens to have more traction in the comments. I believe it's a feature built into this platform to increase engagement and controversy to increase site traffic.
    - FeepingCreature 3mo ago
      For what it's worth, I actually agree that good software development genuinely is driven by vibes a lot of the time. Sometimes we get to formalize them into laws and rules, but we learn the vibes before we learn the rules; and if we only learn the rules but not the vibes, we don't reliably manage to apply them or overapply them. So I don't view that as an insult, but as a differently-phrased description of my actual view. So if you want me to view it as ridiculous, you're gonna have to actually engage with the point.

0xbadcafebee 3mo ago

So software engineering quality is vibes. All coding is vibe coding.

dang 3mo ago
Could you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying to avoid that here, and we've had to ask you this many times over the years. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- 0xbadcafebee 3mo ago
  It's not a flamewar style comment, and I think you know that. I was responding to someone's suggestion that software engineering quality is determined "by instinct" - as in, by feel, as in, vibes. It's a pointed argument about conventions of the software industry, made by repeating what the person said using different words that mean the same thing, to try to get them to see how ridiculous their argument is. You have warned me several times over the years over valid arguments I've made, with no rhyme or reason other than you personally don't agree with my views (or two people downvote it). It would be nice if you didn't throw your weight around so casually, but then again this is your world, not "the community"'s.
  - dang 3mo ago
    This is pretty representative of what I'm calling the flamewar style: > repeating what the person said using different words that mean the same thing, to try to get them to see how ridiculous their argument is Especially when you do it in a snarky way, without any clarifying information, it comes across as belittling and adds a layer of edginess that isn't needed. There's no need to "get [someone] to see how ridiculous their argument is". It's enough to offer a different view, or explain what you think a more correct view is. In fact, if the other person senses that you're trying to "get them to see how ridiculous their argument is", or indeed to "get them" to do anything at all, they usually react primarily to that quality, and only secondarily to any argument—because it breaks the implicit contract of curious conversation. This is how threads get into downward spirals.
    - 0xbadcafebee 3mo ago
      > This is pretty representative of what I'm calling the flamewar style It would be good to have a HN dictionary of terms. The normal internet definition of a flamewar is "a hostile, prolonged argument on the internet that devolves into personal attacks, insults, and aggressive behavior". I said "all coding is vibe coding". Not really a personal attack or aggressive, is it? Glad to know now there's a separate HN definition for this term though. Thank you for correcting my terrible behavior. (That was sarcasm, by the way, not an aggressive attack; I know this can be hard to interpret) > It's enough to offer a different view, or explain what you think a more correct view is. I already offered a different view, in detail, and their response was to double down on the opposite of that view. I would be reiterating the same original point. In order to express the inherent flaw in the view, I associated it to another view most people today find abhorrent. It's high risk, but I have nothing to lose, because they already disagreed with my point. > In fact, if the other person senses that you're trying to "get them to see how ridiculous their argument is", or indeed to "get them" to do anything at all, they usually react primarily to that quality, and only secondarily to any argument I mostly comment on HN to inform the casual viewer that there is a different view than that of the majority echo chamber. I don't need the person I'm replying to to agree with me. I'm trying to reach the person whose brain isn't yet shut down to logic and reason. I admit sometimes it comes off as dickish, which is regretful, but hopefully still makes my point. > because it breaks the implicit contract of curious conversation Almost nobody on the internet has agreed to such a contract. Most people's brains implicitly believe that whatever they already think is correct, unless presented with some irrefutable proof, or argued by a person they implicitly trust. Many people are curious, but not so curious as to want their mind changed by strangers. Which is why people lean on the heuristics of popularity, authority, success, etc to choose what to believe. Most people don't have curious conversations, they have disagreements and agreements. HN is the epicenter of the tech contrarian, here to disagree with any prevailing wisdom and consider any claims that don't sound like "common sense" as suspect. You've built a wall to keep out intelligence and evidence, and inflate the power of the crowd to make certain opinions seem more valid, depending on who happens to have more traction in the comments. I believe it's a feature built into this platform to increase engagement and controversy to increase site traffic.
  - FeepingCreature 3mo ago
    For what it's worth, I actually agree that good software development genuinely is driven by vibes a lot of the time. Sometimes we get to formalize them into laws and rules, but we learn the vibes before we learn the rules; and if we only learn the rules but not the vibes, we don't reliably manage to apply them or overapply them. So I don't view that as an insult, but as a differently-phrased description of my actual view. So if you want me to view it as ridiculous, you're gonna have to actually engage with the point.