14 ms·
Node, Twitter, and Apologies
- artursapek 14y agoI love how he scapegoats Node. Node is an easy target. What an asshole.
- excid3 14y agoI understand it was unintentional, but saying something was an accident in any apology makes it sound insincere. It shouldn't matter if it was an accident or not.
- dekz 14y agoNot sure how this comment is an accident: 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 http://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/293830888003887104 http://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/293830888003887104
- voidlogic 14y agoDid he perhaps mean to direct his criticism at node/js as a framework/language but rather made it sound like he was critical of the author of the node.js application in question? Even if that is the case, it seems like he should have been able to read how other people would read his comment. I'm not sure I buy it.
- sanukcm 14y agoI agree that it sounds insincere, but I'm curious - what about his actions and his apology makes you think it was truly unintentional? I'm all for assuming good will, but it's very difficult for me in this case. >"I don't want to build my app on top of others' code who are at this level of understanding" Seems intentionally condescending, not at all accidental. >"Awesome, enjoy it. I'll be over here in not-node." How is this completely dismissive, elitist snobbery not intentional? That's like walking up to someone, punching them in the face, and then saying "oops, it was an 'accident'... sorry". IMO his intention with these tweets is the core of the problem. To me, the intention quite obviously was to cultivate attention and elevate his status at the expense of humiliating another human being. That's not something you can do by "accident". It's something you can regret[1] - but it's not like tripping over a curb, or rear ending a car because you were checking a text message. [1]-http://programmingtour.blogspot.com/2013/01/im-sorry.html http://programmingtour.blogspot.com/2013/01/im-sorry.html
- sunwooz 14y agoWhy do people hate Node so much?
- jmspring 14y agoI don't hate node However, the tools around using Node and JS are inferior to other languages (C/C++, Java, C#, even PHP and Python). Further, the language doesn't have the cleanest history in terms of design, so in a project with multiple people on it, you are leveraging coding guidelines, linters, and the like to have any real consistency. A colleague raised an interesting question which I will paraphrase -- given the desire to build a project that exposes webservices from the ground up, what language would you choose? My first response was, it depends on the platform. If you are using Azure, for instance, C# is the first class candidate, Node and other languages are tier 2/3. EC2, sky is the limit. Heroku, probably start with Ruby. If all things were equal, I would personally choose Python over Javascript. Python and Twisted give a lot of the same benefits as Node in terms of async development. Python is more consistent and has a more mature (and featureful) standard library. Node and modules are plentiful, but a lot (even socket.io) still show some signs of being young. For me, the choice is - right tool for the platform, group, and project you are working on. Personally, I will err towards the more mature when you are talking about scripting languages. (PHP doesn't count, it's super easy and I've used it a lot, but I always feel dirty afterward :) )
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- wpietri 14y agoIt often happens. E.g., when you are starting a new project on your current infrastructure. Which is where most new projects happen.
- jmspring 14y agoIf you are working at a bigger company, sometimes there is a "standard platform" for the company. I was just covering multiple scenarios.
- js2 14y agoexplaining what I said had the affect of feeling like I was trying not to apologize Steve - http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/affect.html http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/affect.html
- kyro 14y agoThat is my number 1 complaint with Twitter. Sometimes when I write my tweets, I find that the app randomly inserts expletives and will turn the entire message into an @ reply. They must have some really wild NLP stuff going on too, because sometimes I'll even have words of praise switched out for ones of ridicule. I mean, it's already hard enough to be civil in 140 characters.
- MartinCron 14y agoLet's give the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was autocorrect and he was trying to be positive and civil on his phone, but his phone turned it into mean-spirited ridicule.
- howardr 14y agoCYA blog post
- kylec 14y agoNo sincere apology ever starts with "Soooooo".
- MartinCron 14y agoThis comes down to "I wasn't being disrespectful and dismissive of your project, just this other project, so we're cool, right?" I think we can all do better than this.
- askimto 14y agoNot sure we can do better but I'm absolutely positive we can critique anyone who tries!
- fletchowns 14y agoaccidentally being an asshole Is it just me or does this blog post just make this guy look like an even bigger asshole?
- gruseom 14y agoLots of us are accidental assholes sometimes, if it means hurting someone's feelings without meaning to.
- niggler 14y agoHe was not being an accidental asshole. It's not just about hurting a person's feelings. 140 character limit aside, there are better ways of expressing your criticism without derision, and its better for the community if we try to maintain some decorum.
- gruseom 14y agoWho's arguing for derision and indecorum? I find it easy to identify with a guy who screws up, hurts someone's feelings, and then trips over himself trying to make it better because he feels bad.
- niggler 14y agoAccidental asshole isn't a real concept. I highly doubt any of the people would have reacted differently in person, for example. The character traits that we ascribe as being an asshole are developed over many days, during which many of the reactions are intentional.
- jimmyjazz14 14y agoan accidental asshole is still an asshole. Seriously making excuses just makes you seem worse.
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- venus 14y agoThis post seems like he is trying to apologise, but it's also coming out wrong and he is again accidentally being an asshole.
- wpietri 14y agoBeing sorry that somebody else felt bad is the beginning of an apology. But it's not the end of one. You can't just say to yourself, "Well now I'll never make somebody feel bad again. Problem solved!" When you fuck up and hurt someone, people don't want just to hear about you feeling bad. That's making it about your pain instead of theirs. It's asking for people to pat you on the head and tell you it's all ok. That's kinda weak. They want to hear what you've learned, and why this won't be a problem again.
- askimto 14y agoI'm looking for a life coach are you available?
- TallboyOne 14y agoIn his defense he has apologized like 600 times on twitter so far. Im sure it was a genuine mistake just getting carried away in moment. Twitter makes that kind of easy I suppose.
- wpietri 14y agoSure. But in those 600 times, is there evidence of him learning something? Contrast it with Corey Haines's apology, where he talked about how it violated his principles, that his specific mistake was forgetting that there are always people behind software. That's the sort of lesson-learning that I thought was missing from Steve Kalabnik's post.
- IvyMike 14y agoI'm gonna copy what I said in the other thread, because it's more relevant now: You know, reading the various devs' tweets, they use twitter in a way that is completely foreign to me. Is there anything these guys think that they don't tweet? ("Hey, who's picking me up from the hotel?" is not something I'd ever announce to the world at large.) This incident shows a danger of working that way--one of these guys apparently had a rude little thought best kept private--and let's admit it, we all have those thoughts at one time or another. But because he tweets everything, that little passing thought was pushed to the world, which is not good for anyone involved.
- rhizome 14y agoI've noticed that the most boorish developer types (and I've worked with a few), are those who tweet conversationally.
- foobar2000 14y agohttp://i.imgur.com/f7wTyD9.png http://i.imgur.com/f7wTyD9.png
- niggler 14y agoI would like to see someone respond to a twitter message called out (like the one in question) and give a real apology. If you are truly apologetic for the tone but not the substance, use the apology as an opportunity to say as much! It offends our sensibilities to see a half assed apology that completely misses the point. If you think the tool is unnecessary, say why! Give a coherent argument and then we can have a discussion. Otherwise it comes off as phony.
- w3pm 14y agoWhy is this on the front page of HN? Anyone read http://corte.si/posts/socialmedia/trouble-with-social-news.html http://corte.si/posts/socialmedia/trouble-with-social-news.h...? Unfortunately, that article is spot-on. I want to be reading industry news, not someone's social gossip. Specifically, I want to read articles about optimizing Erlang, the latest developments in NoSQL databases, developer war stories, and changes in the funding landscape. I don't want to hear about someone apologizing for an offensive Twitter post. I think we need a separate category called 'industry gossip' for this kind of drama.
- niggler 14y agoI for one enjoy these. Not because of schadenfreude (I don't like seeing people cut down) but because I learn vicariously through others' gaffes
- MartinCron 14y agoIt's on the front page of HN because this community cares about civility, online interactions, open source contributions, and gender issues in technology.
- w3pm 14y agoI don't want to hear about someone apologizing for an offensive Twitter post. Go ahead and keep downvoting me for expressing an opinion -- I'm sure I'm not the only one with similar feelings :) --> To respond to the posts below: I think the original post is fine, I didn't make this comment there. Hearing about that is interesting and is a fine example of how easy it is for users with social capital to abuse it, a reminder we need. Seeing two threads containing blog posts of people apologizing? I'm not sure I actually care, I think my learning and interest ended after reading the original thread. Now we're firmly in noise territory.
- MartinCron 14y agoHow is "I made this thing, shared it with the world, and was ridiculed by high profile members of the community" not a developer war story?
- jimmyjazz14 14y agoApologizing for "making someone feel bad" seems like a way of dodging blame. Honestly this whole thing feel like a half-assed apology sandwiched with excuses. If you are wrong say so, take the blame and move on.
- karterk 14y agoI'm sorry, and feel terrible that I made someone feel terrible This does not come across as a strong apology because Steve keeps stressing on making someone feel terrible and not really accepting that he was wrong to ridicule code without offering constructive criticism.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- instakill 14y agoDear Steve, Heather and anyone else that fits the bill It's okay. People sometimes say hurtful things despite historically having strong opinions about never belittling other people publicly. It doesn't mean that they truly mean it, and it doesn't mean that you should take these negative things to heart either. People slip up because we're multifaceted creatures and despite our intentions to be the best person all the time, well that's just not possible. Regardless of whether what you're being criticized for is justified or not, it is inevitable if it's been made public. The irony in this case is that the bully is being made feel worse because of his past blog posts, which is also sad but just as inevitable. It's okay Steve, we all fuck up, and the ease of doing it on Twitter doesn't help. Heather, I promise you that any decent potential employer is still exactly that. Nobody will disqualify you from a job position based on something you've made. You've open-sourced it, so if anything you get bonus points. You will always be criticized, the trick is to ignore the haters and know that people in a situation of genuine critique (i.e. candidate interviewer) will never judge you (as badly) as some people on Twitter did. Do not let this discourage you from contributing publicly in future either, even if your code IS shit. Everyone's code is shit, at least to some people. As long as you're happy with it, that's all that matters. Also, somewhere down the line you'll look back at it and think "Wow, that's shit code", which just means you've gotten so much better.
- zeeg 14y agoI was one of the people who made a comment about this. I'm not going to defend that I think attempting to replace sed/grep is a bad idea (especially not in 140 characters), but I will defend people's opinions. Everyone has one, most of them you won't agree with. Whether they're nice or not. I'm generally not a nice person, at least online, that's my choice. That said, especially with this being the internet, you have to deal with others opinions. While some people may go above and beyond (even myself sometimes) and actually be very mean with their opinion, that doesn't change the fact that they're entitled to it. If you don't like it, ignore it. If you can't ignore it, then you won't survive. The fact that people somehow managed to turn this into the continuous drama debate about gender is just pathetic.
- tunesmith 14y agoWhy do you choose to not be a nice person (online)? Just curious. Also, I think the "If you don't like, ignore it. If you can't ignore it, then you won't survive," is self-serving advice. It'd be easier to take seriously if you were one of the nice people.
- rjzzleep 14y agoWhy does it matter to you what some dude, somewhere in the globe thinks of you? Just curious.
- zeeg 14y agoI don't necessarily choose it, I just don't go out of my way (like most people) to be nice. I would argue, that what makes me who I am (a driven, passionate person) also leads to traits like being honestly vocal about things. Whether the way these things are presented is directly related or not is a little bit different. If I see something I don't like, whether it's on the internet, at work, or just in general, I will usually say I don't like it. Now Twitter doesn't make a great means of communication for things like this (e.g. you can really provide much insight, or realistically follow up), it does make it easy. I would argue that people who are unwilling to give their opinion (and I know that there's many on both sides of everything, that are quiet), are simply forcing themselves into an uncomfortable situation. Often you (or rather I) will deal with the results of your opinion, but for the freedom it offers, and the drive it gives me, I'll stick by it. That said, I admire Heather for doing something, but I am rather unhappy that the result of this was a (IMO, unnecessary) blog post, a ton of ignorant comments on the internet, and more importantly, people attempting to turn the situation into something it isnt.
- SeanDav 14y agoTo decide if we should give Steve the benefit of the doubt, look at his tweet/post history. If he does this often, he is an asshole, if not he is an accidental asshole, which is fine because it is so easy to get real intention completely wrong in even long emails let alone a tweet. Also anyone can have a bad day...
- jupake 14y agoI think the only reason people like this are apologizing publicly is to save face. Behold people.. the underbelly of programmer culture :-(