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And once again the top comment doesn't do anything to continue the thoughtful discussion that began in the article, instead providing a pedantic correction.
by ritchiea 13y ago
And once again the top comment doesn't do anything to continue the thoughtful discussion that began in the article, instead providing a pedantic correction.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoIf it weren't for pedants, we wouldn't have computers.
- tinco 13y agoYes, because the introduction of the computer was a minor change to the world that only a pedant would have bothered with?
- foobarbazqux 13y agoGood point, it wasn't a minor change. I meant to specify working computers.
- philh 13y agoThat doesn't seem relevant. If it wasn't for hunter-gatherers, we wouldn't have much of anything; but that doesn't mean hunter-gatherers have much to contribute to particle physics. There are times when it's important to be pedantic, like when you're writing software. (I don't think we normally use the word "pedantic" in these cases, but I'm not going to argue the matter.) And there are times when it's not important, like when an article mixes up the order in which two pieces of software were released.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoA cornerstone of writing any kind of history is establishing an accurate chronology of events. In peer-reviewed articles the details of who came first in related work sections are critical. At any rate, I think many of us simply find it interesting to hear the real story. It's not like the guy was correcting a grammatical mistake, and it's not like he was impolite about it.
- gadders 13y agoIt's not the most important comment on the subject, but it is right that the firebug developer get credit.
- lmm 13y agoAnd once again the top reply to the top comment has even less value, sending us off into pointless meta-discussion.
- RyanMcGreal 13y agoPike: That's a technicality. Spock: I am Vulcan, sir. We embrace technicalities.
- counterpointer 13y agoThis would be much less of a problem if we could collapse comment trees like on Reddit. It would be just easy to minimize and ignore. I think someone made an extension for that.
- balac 13y agoYou might find the Hacker News Collapse extension useful: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collapse/bbkfcamiocfccgmcjngdljolljhifdph?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-collap...
- aptwebapps 13y agoThere's nothing wrong with the comment in and of its self, in my opinion. In fact, I appreciate it. But it's too bad that relevance to the original article seems to have so little correlation with votes.