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I do not believe that forthright explanations of genuinely complex topics can ever be a disservice to users -- accurate and complete information is critical to

I do not believe that forthright explanations of genuinely complex topics can ever be a disservice to users -- accurate and complete information is critical to "make[ing] the right choices". The suggestion to provide patches is a simple displacement mechanism. A correct, reasoned evaluation is not predicated on also including patches, and a reasoned evaluator may have significant cause to not invest further effort in providing improvements to the evaluated software.

ewjordan 18y ago
I agree with you, but I think the gp has a point: look at Java as an example. Here we are, at a point where Java code runs extremely fast, but because of the "Java is slow" meme that took off at the turn of the century, any time Java comes up you _still_ see uninformed people on (for instance) Slashdot insisting that Java is unusable for important code because it's so slow. That said, I don't think the right solution to avoiding problems like this is a "head in the sand" approach. If there are real performance issues, they should be acknowledged and addressed. I definitely get the sense that a lot of Ruby zealots are trying to pretend that there is no problem, which is something that Java zealots tried to do years ago (and something that the people in control of feature requests still do quite a bit, using the "Nobody can microbenchmark the JVM, it's too smart!" excuse). I don't know why this stuff gets people so emotional, though. You don't see carpenters have heated arguments about whether a screwdriver is better than a hammer; why do programmers get so emotionally attached to their tools, refusing to acknowledge the limitations and strengths of each particular one?
- berntb 18y ago
  Obviously, some language/OS/etc cultures are more fanboyish than others. I tend to not get active in those; it'd be embarrassing. Edit: I am specifically thinking about Ruby here. It seems quite neat and worth trying, but... Maybe I'm spoiled with polite communities.
- eonwe 18y ago
  I can think of two reasons getting emotionally attached to the tools: learning the tool, be it Java or Ruby, requires considerably more thought than learning to use a screwdriver and using the tool shapes the way problems and solutions look to a programmer. Required effort causes programmers to know less languages and to value the languages they already know higher as they've had to come up with a rationalization for learning the language. This rationalization hinders acknowledging the downsides of the languages they've learned. Additionally, languages give us our vocabulary and solutions seen beautiful by a programmer of one language can seem incomprehensible or at least ugly to programmer of another language. This is at least something that I've personally observed in a Java-shop I work in.
  - trapper 18y ago
    People still get emotional over primitive tools. Having an emotional stake in the tool must have conveyed some evolutionary advantage as we all display it.

ewjordan 18y ago

I agree with you, but I think the gp has a point: look at Java as an example. Here we are, at a point where Java code runs extremely fast, but because of the "Java is slow" meme that took off at the turn of the century, any time Java comes up you _still_ see uninformed people on (for instance) Slashdot insisting that Java is unusable for important code because it's so slow. That said, I don't think the right solution to avoiding problems like this is a "head in the sand" approach. If there are real performance issues, they should be acknowledged and addressed. I definitely get the sense that a lot of Ruby zealots are trying to pretend that there is no problem, which is something that Java zealots tried to do years ago (and something that the people in control of feature requests still do quite a bit, using the "Nobody can microbenchmark the JVM, it's too smart!" excuse). I don't know why this stuff gets people so emotional, though. You don't see carpenters have heated arguments about whether a screwdriver is better than a hammer; why do programmers get so emotionally attached to their tools, refusing to acknowledge the limitations and strengths of each particular one?

berntb 18y ago
Obviously, some language/OS/etc cultures are more fanboyish than others. I tend to not get active in those; it'd be embarrassing. Edit: I am specifically thinking about Ruby here. It seems quite neat and worth trying, but... Maybe I'm spoiled with polite communities.
eonwe 18y ago
I can think of two reasons getting emotionally attached to the tools: learning the tool, be it Java or Ruby, requires considerably more thought than learning to use a screwdriver and using the tool shapes the way problems and solutions look to a programmer. Required effort causes programmers to know less languages and to value the languages they already know higher as they've had to come up with a rationalization for learning the language. This rationalization hinders acknowledging the downsides of the languages they've learned. Additionally, languages give us our vocabulary and solutions seen beautiful by a programmer of one language can seem incomprehensible or at least ugly to programmer of another language. This is at least something that I've personally observed in a Java-shop I work in.
- trapper 18y ago
  People still get emotional over primitive tools. Having an emotional stake in the tool must have conveyed some evolutionary advantage as we all display it.