Hacker News Reader

Comment by scaramanga | Hacker News Reader

> Is this advice meant to be applied against all people, or just other developers? I certainly wouldn't apply this standard to RIAA lawyers suing kids. I judge them to be worms even though I never worked with them. And don't even get me started on politicians

These developers do not wield power over anyone and they are not filing lawsuits. They are developing code, either as their job, or as volunteers. And in either case, contributing their work as open source.

It might help to take a little perspective before publicly passing judgement on _individuals_ and what you imagine their intentions to be rather than merely judging the merit of their contributions. Those are completely different things.

View on HN

What I'm talking about really has nothing to do with power. Maybe the examples I chose suggested that power dynamics are relevant to my point, but I think they aren't, so here is another example without one: Should an architect refrain from judging Frank Lloyd Wright just because they never worked together? I think certainly not. That seems completely backwards to me. Anybody is entitled to have an opinion on Frank Lloyd Wright, another architect particularly so.

Are you talking about judging his contributions and significance to architecture or his worth as a person?

I get that the two things have some overlap and aren't cleanly divisible. What we do is a major part of who we are.

But I mean, it's one thing to say "I think it [his architecture] is awful", or even "I think his architecture had a negative impact on people/society/cherished values/whatever" but quite another to say "I think he sought the ruination of everything good and decent because he was a demented and feeble mind." Because, yes, I do think the last one would only be appropriate if you actually knew something about the guy...

Edit: And yeah, of course, I'm not trying to censor anyone's opinions. Of course you can _have_ the opinion, you can even express it. I just think that it's not what engaging in productive/civil discourse looks like and, depending on the venue, people may call that out or whatever.

I am not talking about judging his 'worth as a person'; rather his 'worth as a developer.' Maybe in his private life he's a wonderful person, who knows? Who cares? It is his professional activities that concern people.

You are of course welcome to have an opinion, and to choose whatever product you want based on that opinion. But if the extent of your opinion is "this person is a jerk and their work is terrible and not to my taste" that is unlikely to convince that person to change course, especially if they don't know you and if the decision is already made.

Furthermore, the "this person is a jerk" part is clearly not part of some dispassionate evaluation of his professional accomplishments and is just a verbal attack couched in the language of professional criticism.

I suspect that, in many instances, people who do that are not trying to convince anybody of anything. If they expected to be greeted everywhere with agreement then they would not go around saying things which they know perfectly well are not likely to result in a vigorous and healthy debate if they were said to strangers in the street :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com