8 ms·

I suggest you read this very carefully: http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html

Xylakant 13y ago
I suggest that the gp's post is very much an ad hominem attack. It suggests, but does not offer proof that Magical Tux is an inferior programmer not capable of building quality software by playing on the fact that some people consider PHP a toy, broken and inferior programming language. It asserts that PHP programmers are always inferior programmers - an assertion that does not hold true. So it uses an unrelated info-bit (PHP-Programmer) to attack Magical Tux qualities as programmer of a bitcoin exchange. Please note that I'm not asserting anything about the qualities of the programmers of MtGox or the code quality running the exchange. It might quite well be shitty and bug-ridden, but that quality is totally unrelated to PHP.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >It suggests, but does not offer proof that Magical Tux is an inferior programmer not capable of building quality software by playing on the fact that some people consider PHP a toy, broken and inferior programming language. No, I suggest that some random web developer, with no experience in finances, and without a big financial player behind him, should not really be trusted with people's hard earned money. Counter to what you say, I could not care less if he did this in Scala or Racket instead of PHP -- I merely quoted the one-liner he gives about himself. He could have written Haskell in there and I would still have the same objections: Who is he? What has he done before in the financial world? Why should people trust his skills at setting up a money exchange? Note that, in my argument, I don't even care if he's a good programmer or not. He might outdo Rick Hickey and Simon Peyton Jones put together. What I'm asking is: why should we trust him? Ability to set up a good and safe money exchange AND not be a crook != ability to program.
  - Tenoke 13y ago
    You should have probably said this in the first place instead of drawing the attention to his choice of nickname and self-description. This here was a much more reasonable argument.
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    The argument you're making now is a very different one from the one you were making in your original post. In your original post you call attention to his nickname (which is totally unrelated to competence, a lot of competent people have weird nicknames and a lot of incompetent people don't have any) and his one-line self-description which only tells us that he working on some weird stuff written in PHP. This is all of the argument that you made - you attacked his person and character, not anything he said or any of his qualities related to the incident. To sum up your post in a quip "Oh, look, PHP programmer at work, LOL, what did you expect?" Now you're making a different and more nuanced argument which boils down to "why should we trust him, even if he's competent." That's a reasonable question to ask - but the question of trust is a fundamentally different question from the question of competence. I might trust someone incompetent to be well-meaning and someone competent and capable might be completely untrustworthy. It might even be true that he's incapable and untrustworthy, but still - that's not the argument you made. The fundamental problem with the older bitcoin exchanges is that they all started out when nobody in the financial world even cared about bitcoin: No technical knowledge, no investors, ... so basically trust had to be earned from 0 on. One point speaking for Mt.Gox is that they are still in business while other exchanges folded. Somebody seems to trust them.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >To sum up your post in a quip "Oh, look, PHP programmer at work, LOL, what did you expect?" Ever noticed how those are entirely your words? I merely pointed out at his experience -- not picked on the particular language he uses. In fact I've supported PHP in other HN threads. The language was only mentioned because HE used it in his bio blurb. What I wanted to point in that blurb was: random web developer (ie. not a person with known expertise in financial software and money exchanges) and a silly nickname (ie. not really the short of mature behavior that inspires confidence in a major venture such as a financial service). Contrary to the purely theoritical notion that such a nickname is "totally unrelated to competence" (which might be perfectly reasonable in theory), I'd say that in the real world it speaks volumes about maturity and self-perception. If my banker was calling himself "Crazy-Ass Joe" or "Mr Fancypants" I'd be similarly worried. >One point speaking for Mt.Gox is that they are still in business while other exchanges folded. Somebody seems to trust them. Well, to paraphrase P. T. Barnum, there is one person trusting them born every minute.

I suggest that the gp's post is very much an ad hominem attack. It suggests, but does not offer proof that Magical Tux is an inferior programmer not capable of building quality software by playing on the fact that some people consider PHP a toy, broken and inferior programming language. It asserts that PHP programmers are always inferior programmers - an assertion that does not hold true. So it uses an unrelated info-bit (PHP-Programmer) to attack Magical Tux qualities as programmer of a bitcoin exchange. Please note that I'm not asserting anything about the qualities of the programmers of MtGox or the code quality running the exchange. It might quite well be shitty and bug-ridden, but that quality is totally unrelated to PHP.

coldtea 13y ago
>It suggests, but does not offer proof that Magical Tux is an inferior programmer not capable of building quality software by playing on the fact that some people consider PHP a toy, broken and inferior programming language. No, I suggest that some random web developer, with no experience in finances, and without a big financial player behind him, should not really be trusted with people's hard earned money. Counter to what you say, I could not care less if he did this in Scala or Racket instead of PHP -- I merely quoted the one-liner he gives about himself. He could have written Haskell in there and I would still have the same objections: Who is he? What has he done before in the financial world? Why should people trust his skills at setting up a money exchange? Note that, in my argument, I don't even care if he's a good programmer or not. He might outdo Rick Hickey and Simon Peyton Jones put together. What I'm asking is: why should we trust him? Ability to set up a good and safe money exchange AND not be a crook != ability to program.
- Tenoke 13y ago
  You should have probably said this in the first place instead of drawing the attention to his choice of nickname and self-description. This here was a much more reasonable argument.
- Xylakant 13y ago
  The argument you're making now is a very different one from the one you were making in your original post. In your original post you call attention to his nickname (which is totally unrelated to competence, a lot of competent people have weird nicknames and a lot of incompetent people don't have any) and his one-line self-description which only tells us that he working on some weird stuff written in PHP. This is all of the argument that you made - you attacked his person and character, not anything he said or any of his qualities related to the incident. To sum up your post in a quip "Oh, look, PHP programmer at work, LOL, what did you expect?" Now you're making a different and more nuanced argument which boils down to "why should we trust him, even if he's competent." That's a reasonable question to ask - but the question of trust is a fundamentally different question from the question of competence. I might trust someone incompetent to be well-meaning and someone competent and capable might be completely untrustworthy. It might even be true that he's incapable and untrustworthy, but still - that's not the argument you made. The fundamental problem with the older bitcoin exchanges is that they all started out when nobody in the financial world even cared about bitcoin: No technical knowledge, no investors, ... so basically trust had to be earned from 0 on. One point speaking for Mt.Gox is that they are still in business while other exchanges folded. Somebody seems to trust them.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >To sum up your post in a quip "Oh, look, PHP programmer at work, LOL, what did you expect?" Ever noticed how those are entirely your words? I merely pointed out at his experience -- not picked on the particular language he uses. In fact I've supported PHP in other HN threads. The language was only mentioned because HE used it in his bio blurb. What I wanted to point in that blurb was: random web developer (ie. not a person with known expertise in financial software and money exchanges) and a silly nickname (ie. not really the short of mature behavior that inspires confidence in a major venture such as a financial service). Contrary to the purely theoritical notion that such a nickname is "totally unrelated to competence" (which might be perfectly reasonable in theory), I'd say that in the real world it speaks volumes about maturity and self-perception. If my banker was calling himself "Crazy-Ass Joe" or "Mr Fancypants" I'd be similarly worried. >One point speaking for Mt.Gox is that they are still in business while other exchanges folded. Somebody seems to trust them. Well, to paraphrase P. T. Barnum, there is one person trusting them born every minute.