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> Steve Klabnik ‏@steveklabnik > @harthvader @zeeg nothing's _wrong_ with it, but I don't want to build my app on top of others' code who are at this level of

> Steve Klabnik ‏@steveklabnik > @harthvader @zeeg nothing's _wrong_ with it, but I don't want to build my app on top of others' code who are at this level of understanding This message [1] in particular is absolutely disgusting. Someone hacked together a script that met their needs, and threw it up onto GitHub in case anyone else found it useful? Yes, let's take the opportunity to condescendingly insult their mental competency. What does he even mean by saying that he doesn't "want to build my app" on top of harthur's code? Nobody asked him to; steveklabnik himself made the original post, taking the opportunity to show off this smug sense of superiority. [1] https://twitter.com/harthvader/status/293829635823792128 https://twitter.com/harthvader/status/293829635823792128

nesquena 14y ago
What a great idea to go around calling other people stupid for creating personal open-source projects that they enjoy using, mocking their competence and treating them as if they should go away because they aren't as good as you. What a productive use of a developer's time.
- mintplant 14y ago
  Even stranger is the fact that harther isn't exactly a novice programmer: apparently, she's part of Mozilla [1], and wrote brain.js [2], a neural network library in JavaScript with almost 1,400 stars on GitHub. [1] https://twitter.com/harthvader https://twitter.com/harthvader [2] https://github.com/harthur/brain https://github.com/harthur/brain
  - nesquena 14y ago
    brain looks pretty cool and I also noticed she not only works at mozilla but also regularly speaks at conferences. Weird how judging a person's competence based on looking at a single for fun open source project may not be a great idea.
  - gfodor 14y ago
    which is doubly embarrassing for the people insulting her because odds are anyone taking the time chastising someone's hacky duct tape script as if it were a Real Thing Worth Talking About probably has no comprehension of real algorithmic work, real computer science, like that needed to implement neural nets.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      To be fair implementing a simple neural network is probably about par for the course as a sophomore CS undergrad project. The basic algorithms you need can be found via google. In my (extremely limited) experience the much more difficult part is using them to successfully solve real world problems.
      - gfodor 14y ago
        Sure. My point is anyone who really seriously gets on their high horse about how great they are by looking at a simple little script that is essentially background noise for professional engineers are probably pretty far removed from even a sophomore CS undergrad level of sophistication.
        jiggy2011 14y ago
        Certainly, although in my experience smart , sophisticated people are by no means under-represented in the "asshole" population. IMO the problem comes when you have people who's entire ego is based on being smart. In the past they probably had their egos massaged by getting the highest test scores in class etc and "winning" in that sense. Since the world does not work like that anymore they feel that they have to "win" at github instead.
kevinj124 14y ago
Seriously, what a complete prick.
yen223 14y ago
Here's the thing, when someone like Linus Torvald says things like that, we applaud him for it.
- msbarnett 14y ago
  Who's "we"? HN, let alone software devs as a whole, are not a hivemind.
- readme 14y ago
  I'm not sure if that's the same thing. Linus usually criticizes things in a way that actually points out the flaws. This guy is just essentially saying "LOL U SUCK"
  - jamesaguilar 14y ago
    And with Linus, it's not usually about the person (unless the person is actually being obstinate or negligent).
    - LeonidasXIV 14y ago
      And here I was thinking that Linus was the one guy in open source who says "moron" a lot.
  - adrr 14y ago
    LOL U SUCK. Kidding, though some of the threads I read involving C++/C with Linus involved are so childish they are actually entertaining. Example: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/57918 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/5791...
    - readme 14y ago
      Oh, the C++ one came to mind immediately when I read the parent comment.
    - pavanky 14y ago
artursapek 14y ago
Not to contribute to the mindless hate, but look at the dude's Twitter photo. He's clearly an eccentric fellow. And also, apparently, an asshole.
pazimzadeh 14y ago
Steve Klabnik: "I find it incredibly hard not to be judgmental. I'm not sure what part of my personality makes this happen, but even when I try to curb tearing down other people, I end up doing it anyway. I'm not sure if it's just me, but I think part of the problem is that these kinds of things are rewarded." http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2010-09-24-trolling-is-a-art http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2010-09-24-trolling-is-a-...
- jamesaguilar 14y ago
  Textbook weasel apology.
  - jmaygarden 14y ago
    I don't think textbook weasel apologies are usually done several years in advance.
  - akent 14y ago
    Note the date; this one was from 2010. His most recent post is http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2013-01-23-node http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2013-01-23-node
    - ryaf 14y ago
      And it's still a weasel apology
      - lengarvey 14y ago
        Generally a weasel apology would be: "I'm sorry If I made someone feel bad" Not "I am sorry. I feel terrible that I made someone else feel terrible." Corey's apology did feel nicer, but I don't think that Steve's was a bad apology.
        cpeterso 14y ago
        In his "apology", Steve says three times that he was "accidentally" an asshole. That doesn't sound very sincere.
doktrin 14y ago
> What does he even mean by saying that he doesn't "want to build my app" on top of harthur's code? Nobody asked him to I can't speak for him, but based on another comment further down ("I'll be over here in not-node"), it read like a dig at Node itself by proxy / extension. > Yes, let's take the opportunity to condescendingly insult their mental competency. Indeed. This type of behavior is almost never justified, but particularly less so when the object of scorn is clearly an exceedingly talented programmer. One glance at her GH profile reveals several well-used open source projects, including a neural network library and a bayesian classifier. It really does drive home the point that if this can happen to someone of her caliber, then it really can happen to anyone. In fact, it probably does - except with less public attention.
- neumann_alfred 14y ago
  One glance at her GH profile reveals several well-used open source projects, including a neural network library and a bayesian classifier. Thanks so much for pointing that out (and thanks Heather for writing it :P)! I would have missed it otherwise, and I have always wanted to play with neural nets as well as bayesian filters.. this seems very friendly for me to get into, so it made my week(end) if not more :)
- web007 14y ago
  I might be an emotionless robot or something, but I don't get the furore over this. Everyone writes crap code sometimes (viz. github.com/007 aka craptown USA). Just because you are "exceedingly talented" or have "well-used" projects doesn't mean everything you write is rainbows and unicorns. If your project is useful to you, then screw everyone else - why care what they think? https://github.com/harthur/kittydar https://github.com/harthur/kittydar is useless but brilliant. I'll be bookmarking it for the next time I need feature detection in JS, and because it mentions HOG descriptors. https://github.com/harthur/replace https://github.com/harthur/replace is useful but not-brilliant. I'll bookmark the 'sed' or 'awk' manpage instead.
  - talmand 14y ago
    But it seems that complaints against the replace code wasn't about the code itself. It seems it's more about the fact that it isn't sed, that it's javascript, that it's node, and that they themselves would choose not to use it. For all those reasons they chose to publicly criticize the project in what can be considered a demeaning way. For an "open" source community, that's a bad thing and deserves this furor. In fact, it should happen more often than it does.
zapu 14y ago
This is scary. I share a lot of bad code in various places, that I created in process of learning or just because I needed something done quickly. I always inform that this code shouldn't be used in any system "as is", but may serve for learning purposes. I know that a lot of people do that. And I find it incredibily useful, sometimes finding a snippet of code saves me time from jumping extra hoops, just because (for example) driver misbehaves or documentation is incorrect/incomplete. I hope this incident doesn't stop anyone from sharing their code and findings, no matter how good or "professional" they are.

nesquena 14y ago

What a great idea to go around calling other people stupid for creating personal open-source projects that they enjoy using, mocking their competence and treating them as if they should go away because they aren't as good as you. What a productive use of a developer's time.

mintplant 14y ago
Even stranger is the fact that harther isn't exactly a novice programmer: apparently, she's part of Mozilla [1], and wrote brain.js [2], a neural network library in JavaScript with almost 1,400 stars on GitHub. [1] https://twitter.com/harthvader https://twitter.com/harthvader [2] https://github.com/harthur/brain https://github.com/harthur/brain
- nesquena 14y ago
  brain looks pretty cool and I also noticed she not only works at mozilla but also regularly speaks at conferences. Weird how judging a person's competence based on looking at a single for fun open source project may not be a great idea.
- gfodor 14y ago
  which is doubly embarrassing for the people insulting her because odds are anyone taking the time chastising someone's hacky duct tape script as if it were a Real Thing Worth Talking About probably has no comprehension of real algorithmic work, real computer science, like that needed to implement neural nets.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    To be fair implementing a simple neural network is probably about par for the course as a sophomore CS undergrad project. The basic algorithms you need can be found via google. In my (extremely limited) experience the much more difficult part is using them to successfully solve real world problems.
    - gfodor 14y ago
      Sure. My point is anyone who really seriously gets on their high horse about how great they are by looking at a simple little script that is essentially background noise for professional engineers are probably pretty far removed from even a sophomore CS undergrad level of sophistication.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        Certainly, although in my experience smart , sophisticated people are by no means under-represented in the "asshole" population. IMO the problem comes when you have people who's entire ego is based on being smart. In the past they probably had their egos massaged by getting the highest test scores in class etc and "winning" in that sense. Since the world does not work like that anymore they feel that they have to "win" at github instead.

kevinj124 14y ago

Seriously, what a complete prick.

yen223 14y ago

Here's the thing, when someone like Linus Torvald says things like that, we applaud him for it.

msbarnett 14y ago
Who's "we"? HN, let alone software devs as a whole, are not a hivemind.
readme 14y ago
I'm not sure if that's the same thing. Linus usually criticizes things in a way that actually points out the flaws. This guy is just essentially saying "LOL U SUCK"
- jamesaguilar 14y ago
  And with Linus, it's not usually about the person (unless the person is actually being obstinate or negligent).
  - LeonidasXIV 14y ago
    And here I was thinking that Linus was the one guy in open source who says "moron" a lot.
- adrr 14y ago
  LOL U SUCK. Kidding, though some of the threads I read involving C++/C with Linus involved are so childish they are actually entertaining. Example: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/57918 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/5791...
  - readme 14y ago
    Oh, the C++ one came to mind immediately when I read the parent comment.
  - pavanky 14y ago

artursapek 14y ago

Not to contribute to the mindless hate, but look at the dude's Twitter photo. He's clearly an eccentric fellow. And also, apparently, an asshole.

pazimzadeh 14y ago

Steve Klabnik: "I find it incredibly hard not to be judgmental. I'm not sure what part of my personality makes this happen, but even when I try to curb tearing down other people, I end up doing it anyway. I'm not sure if it's just me, but I think part of the problem is that these kinds of things are rewarded." http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2010-09-24-trolling-is-a-art http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2010-09-24-trolling-is-a-...

jamesaguilar 14y ago
Textbook weasel apology.
- jmaygarden 14y ago
  I don't think textbook weasel apologies are usually done several years in advance.
- akent 14y ago
  Note the date; this one was from 2010. His most recent post is http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2013-01-23-node http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2013-01-23-node
  - ryaf 14y ago
    And it's still a weasel apology
    - lengarvey 14y ago
      Generally a weasel apology would be: "I'm sorry If I made someone feel bad" Not "I am sorry. I feel terrible that I made someone else feel terrible." Corey's apology did feel nicer, but I don't think that Steve's was a bad apology.
      - cpeterso 14y ago
        In his "apology", Steve says three times that he was "accidentally" an asshole. That doesn't sound very sincere.

doktrin 14y ago

> What does he even mean by saying that he doesn't "want to build my app" on top of harthur's code? Nobody asked him to I can't speak for him, but based on another comment further down ("I'll be over here in not-node"), it read like a dig at Node itself by proxy / extension. > Yes, let's take the opportunity to condescendingly insult their mental competency. Indeed. This type of behavior is almost never justified, but particularly less so when the object of scorn is clearly an exceedingly talented programmer. One glance at her GH profile reveals several well-used open source projects, including a neural network library and a bayesian classifier. It really does drive home the point that if this can happen to someone of her caliber, then it really can happen to anyone. In fact, it probably does - except with less public attention.

neumann_alfred 14y ago
One glance at her GH profile reveals several well-used open source projects, including a neural network library and a bayesian classifier. Thanks so much for pointing that out (and thanks Heather for writing it :P)! I would have missed it otherwise, and I have always wanted to play with neural nets as well as bayesian filters.. this seems very friendly for me to get into, so it made my week(end) if not more :)
web007 14y ago
I might be an emotionless robot or something, but I don't get the furore over this. Everyone writes crap code sometimes (viz. github.com/007 aka craptown USA). Just because you are "exceedingly talented" or have "well-used" projects doesn't mean everything you write is rainbows and unicorns. If your project is useful to you, then screw everyone else - why care what they think? https://github.com/harthur/kittydar https://github.com/harthur/kittydar is useless but brilliant. I'll be bookmarking it for the next time I need feature detection in JS, and because it mentions HOG descriptors. https://github.com/harthur/replace https://github.com/harthur/replace is useful but not-brilliant. I'll bookmark the 'sed' or 'awk' manpage instead.
- talmand 14y ago
  But it seems that complaints against the replace code wasn't about the code itself. It seems it's more about the fact that it isn't sed, that it's javascript, that it's node, and that they themselves would choose not to use it. For all those reasons they chose to publicly criticize the project in what can be considered a demeaning way. For an "open" source community, that's a bad thing and deserves this furor. In fact, it should happen more often than it does.

zapu 14y ago

This is scary. I share a lot of bad code in various places, that I created in process of learning or just because I needed something done quickly. I always inform that this code shouldn't be used in any system "as is", but may serve for learning purposes. I know that a lot of people do that. And I find it incredibily useful, sometimes finding a snippet of code saves me time from jumping extra hoops, just because (for example) driver misbehaves or documentation is incorrect/incomplete. I hope this incident doesn't stop anyone from sharing their code and findings, no matter how good or "professional" they are.