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> Really. Can we not be critical on the internet any more? I think that's a vast oversimplification. I actually don't think this has ANYTHING TO DO WITH CODE.
by columbo 14y ago
> Really. Can we not be critical on the internet any more?
I think that's a vast oversimplification.
I actually don't think this has ANYTHING TO DO WITH CODE. Anyone can walk into a subway restaurant, ask for a sandwich, take pictures of the people who made the sandwich, tweet their pictures laughing at how stupid they are and what a shitty job they did making your sandwich. You can do that to waiters, barstaff, cleaners, you can do that to anyone... but it makes you an asshole.
If you find yourself pulling up individual repos with <5 users and shouting 'Hey everybody look at these people recreating the wheel! What fools! Let's all point and laugh!' wouldn't you agree that's being an asshole? Is that bettering the community? No, frankly all you are doing is choosing to piss on a few people.
I have a ton of files on github and gist, most of them are absolute crap. I put them out there on the off chance someone happens by a similar issue/problem they might find something useful.
This morning there was a gist I was reading, and yeah it was mostly rubbish but it had the one line of code I was looking for.
That behavior needs to be encouraged by more people. We need to encourage people to put out their code and not delete it. Regardless of if it is crap.
If you see something picking up momentum with a growing base of users that you disagree with then by all means start raising the alarms; create a blog discussing the downside of using process X (examples of X could be nosql, sql, node, coffeescript, python, java, grails, groovy, haskell, go, maven, ant, gradle, etc etc)
- donohoe 14y agoI have a ton of files on github and gist, most of them are absolute crap. Honest question: Is it okay for someone else to say (without swearing or making personal jabs) in public that it is also crap? And again, to emphasize, this is a sincere question.
- columbo 14y agoI don't think it's possible to answer without getting into a debate about community, morality and ethics. There's no way to distill this down to a "unit test". Will it bother me? Maybe, depends on who it is. XxHackerPants420xX's tweet of 'Columbo is teh code suxxor' wouldn't bother me as much as pg choosing to write a personal blog post titled 'ode to Columbo's shitty github account'. Is it okay? Meh. It isn't a community I'd want to be part of. I truly believe in the power of constructive criticism and I don't believe anyone can survive this environment by wearing their hearts on their sleeve. However, there's never justification for rudeness.
- xHackrPants420x 14y agoColumbo is teh code suxxor
- donohoe 14y agoI understand. I didn't mean it as a unit test, more a litmus test. And I agree - constructive criticism trumps criticism. Is it okay? Meh. It isn't a community I'd want to be part of Also agree. However I'm unease about people flogged in public over generic criticisms. I think its important that people can say things (yeah, even mean things) since sometimes its warranted. I'd prefer we save the public flogging to those that step over a hard-to-define line. I don't think that line was crossed in his case.
- chris_wot 14y agoFor once, reading with showdead on made me laugh!
- hosh 14y agoExactly. It's one thing to be critical. It's another to ridicule. Being critical is rational and objective. Ridiculing is a form of contempt, an emotion. When you ridicule, you are not taking apart what you criticize, you are trying to take apart the other person. Those skilled at this will often do it in such a way to make it sound as if they are being rational, objective, and focus only the work, when in fact, they are projecting emotions of contempt and cutting someone apart. The way our society is structured, you can "get away" with something like that because there's a fallacy ... that what you can somehow separate the criticism and feedback you give from the feelings that you experience (or suppress). Well. You can't. Emotions arise and pass: they are real, they are experienced, and they affect behavior.