5 ms·
The point the author is trying to make is perhaps a reasonable one, but what an inappropriate communication style. I don't know if the author realizes the tone
by dewitt 14y ago
The point the author is trying to make is perhaps a reasonable one, but what an inappropriate communication style. I don't know if the author realizes the tone is so off-putting, but I've found that supportive feedback and constructive criticism goes a lot further in professional environments than name calling and insults. Put another way, if someone on my team at work communicated like that I'd have a conversation with them about more effective approaches less likely to alienate or offend colleagues.
There appears to be an uptick of hyper-agressive technical posts over the past several years. I'm not sure where it started, but I'm hoping it burns itself out soon.
(If you're the author, I apologize for calling you out on this. Nothing personal at all, I just wanted to make the general point about tone.)
- bjhoops1 14y ago"Supportive feedback and constructive criticism" don't general page views though. :/
- tmh88j 14y agoAre you insinuating the only way to learn and improve is by being berated?
- bengillies 14y agoThis link seems relevant here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunninghams_Law http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunninghams_Law
- iamwil 14y agohttp://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html Look under DH2. I didn't find his tone offensive at all, esp as a piece of writing. It's likely that he hears "DOM is slow" all the time, and is venting. And he's a far cry from Zed Shaw's kind of writing.
- otikik 14y agoConsider that the OP itself is already disagreeing with something (the assertion "DOM is slow"). If we apply the rules of your link to the OP, it doesn't even get pass DH1 (the title is already a name call, and later on it uses others).
- ender7 14y ago“I’m too stupid to know that what I’m doing is stupid” I agree that the OP's smartass writing style is more annoying than anything else, but I really didn't like the quoted phrase above. Calling someone stupid because they don't know the ins and outs of what is, let's face it, a particularly byzantine system, is just, well...mean. However, if you'd prefer a critique on the substance of the actual article, I have one of those, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5401340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5401340
- dclowd9901 14y agoLook at DH4. He's saying it's more difficult to convince people of your point if you're being a dick about it. You aren't arguing the central point of his thesis, so I'm unsure what exactly your point is in regards to OP. As far as I know, PG's post doesn't apply to the original article, as the article starts the discussion, rather than responds to one.
- collypops 14y agoThis discussion has being going on for a very long time, even on HN. The article is very much a response to what has come before it. Sure it's a starting point for a thread of discussion we're having here, but it's by no means the _start_ of the debate.
- moron4hire 14y agoI think that he probably doesn't care if he hurts the fragile feelings of the types of people who think of JavaScript as a "low level" language and probably doesn't want to work at a place that would hire such people.
- nsxwolf 14y agoAnd I really wouldn't want to work for someone who would refuse to hire an applicant who referred to jQuery as a "framework".
- moron4hire 14y agoTrick question. I really wouldn't want to work for someone, period :P
- tracker1 14y agoOkay... sorry to jump in here.. but low-level means closer to the machine. Assembly, C, etc... "high-level" are further away.. JS is high-level.
- moron4hire 14y agothat was implicit in my statement