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There are five comments on this thread right now, and all of them are personal attacks on the author. What the hell, people?

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My thought exactly. Whatever you think of ESR's writing, it's less predictable and repetitive than most of the comments people post on forums whenever he writes something new.

If you disagree with a post, do the work of explaining why.

The problem with ESR's writing is similar to the no a_hole rule for hiring. a_holes often have very valid points but the way in which they present their case leads to more drama than it's worth.

I disagree with ESRs position because the meat of what he says are ad hominem attacks repeated ad nauseam. It's a troll in essay form and should be regarded as such.

Q: Is there any way to print an asterisk? I tried double asterisk and \asterisk to no avail. It just obliqued my text

If you put a space after the * it will be preserved.

I'm not personally attacking the author, I'm attacking his writing. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I'd argue any implied personal attacks in my comment are far milder than those in Raymond's post.

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