"Web development is easy". Not when it involves working with other people. People are hard, code is easy.
"His accomplishments don't stand out as impressive." How can you know this, let alone conclude this?
He memorized 500 digits of pi in a week and wrote it out on a whiteboard in front of an audience.
He built amazing command line tools and importers to automate migrating and testing large eCommerce systems.
He built a fully functional piano in the browser from scratch, in a few days, before I'd taught him JavaScript.
He built a custom 3D rendering engine from scratch shortly after learning JavaScript, allowing one to simply export any model from Blender and render it in the browser.
He built incredibly complex mapping, routing, and geometry algorithms for delivery systems within a year of learning HTML and before turning 18.
Lastly, one of the most humble people I know.
Please don't continue to detract other new developers from the profession because they run into people like you. Especially when they open up and ask for honest help, wisdom, and feedback.
The only factor that stands out is the age he achieved this in but then again I was making C++ aimbots for counter strike at 14.
I have never really seen the core of a piano or 3D rendering engine on stackoverflow. Even if there is one I am sure that is not how people learn writing a piano software or 3D rendering engine for themselves.
Funny you say college and internships as examples of long-term accomplishments. I find getting your hands dirty and building things (like piano or 3D rendering engine) as long term accomplishments because what you create, you understand and what you understand, truly understand, is going to stick in your brain for years much longer than what you learn in college.
No, he made side projects that people don't use or want. Which is great, we all did it in college.
And above all none of us posted infantile daydreams online and have our TA cope for us at the backlash.
Good day to you.
I mean, sure you can adjust your own standards to help you prove your point... but nobody really cares for arguments of that nature as literally any piece of reality becomes malleable through force of your own opinion. I could say, "In my opinion, everything you said is completely wrong.." and it would be a pointless statement.
In order for me to be arrogant, I would have to advertise and over blow my own abilities. Which I haven't. You should look up the word before you use it incorrectly.
Also, you have to realize OP is not a kid. If a young kid was saying this stuff, I'd be encouraging. But he's basically an adult. And I'm not tearing him down, I'm telling him he'll turn out average.
Additionally the OP is bragging about his accomplishments. It's literally the definition of arrogant.
You should look up the word before you use it incorrectly.
So? Is my objective centered around perception? No.
>You seem to be aware that people are perceiving you in a particular way but rather than adjusting your communication you are trying to argue with them about their interpretation instead.
No, I'm correcting a person about wrong usage of a particular vocabulary word.
>... comes across as arrogant
I think that's a reasonable response given that someone called me arrogant. You think you can go around calling someone arrogant and not have a little retaliation in the response? Are you yourself not aware of your own words? I'm perfectly aware of the subtleties my response entails.
You would do well to learn that rather then attempting to always teach other people obvious things, sometimes you yourself is the person that is acting immature and needs to learn something less obvious. Think about what I said to this person and whether the OP will end up as one of the greatest programmers or just average. In probability, who told him the truth.
Are you even aware that attempting to teach someone something by calling them "arrogant" will lead to nothing? That's another lesson for you. To teach is not to insult, but to respect another persons opinion while providing your own. I'm not respecting your opinion, so my intention isn't to teach you anything. It's to dominate... this is your own intention as well... I mean with phrases like... "we're done here"... let's be real; what's going on in this thread is an argument, you weren't trying to teach my anything.
So only inventing a 3D engine from scratch from your own brain is impressive? Learning from tutorials, books, papers, etc. is not?
I don't know how you learn a new skill but I learn from tutorials, books, papers, lectures, videos. It is impressive to me as long as someone can learn, apply and do something creative.
What is absolutely unimpressive is dissing on others' projects and accomplishments.
You are plagued with doubt.
Here's my suggestion—I don't know if it will help you become one of the best programmers ever [1] but it will be helpful in general if you can pull it off: when encountering hostile/critical/uncharitable comments on the internet - don't respond. It may not look like it, but the way the internet game really works is that the first person who stops reacting wins.
It's not easy, because these comments sting. The trick is to learn to feel the sting and absorb it, i.e. let it run through your system without responding until the bad feeling goes away and you have no more need to respond. At that point you are free. If you think of it as a kind of training challenge, it might get easier.
By the way, a lot of HN users used to be precocious kids whose self-worth got bound up with how good they were at being smart-while-young, and also with being the "smartest kid" in their world. That's my own story, and it's the story of a lot of people here.
When someone like yourself comes along, who's obviously smart and still very young, it can trigger insecurities in people like us, even decades later. The solution is to realize that it's (a) not your problem, and (b) not interesting—and then (c) to focus on engaging with people who actually have something interesting to teach you. Fortunately there are a lot of those here, too!
[1] It might, though, because it has to do with focus.
The OP said - "I want to be one of the best programmers in the world, but I have a long way to go." This is humble enough for me. They may be misguided that there is such a thing as "the best programmers" but they realize that they have a long way to go to reach the state they would be happy with is humble enough for me.
Your comment, sir, on the other hand comes off as arrogant and bitter!
Not necessarily at 18! I think we can cut the OP some slack.
Also, please don't be a jerk on HN. We're trying for a different sort of forum here.
It's important to remember that the intent you have in your head and the way your comments come across to other people can differ by orders of magnitude. (I don't mean "you" personally—this applies to all of us.)
The truth, isn't always well received, history shows this with big examples like galileo. So do you censor and moderate "interpretation" or "truth" because essentially what I see here is moderation of the truth in the name of a negative interpretation.
This is the same type of thing influencing free speech politics and gender pronouns. Because one small group decided it's offensive to call a transgender person by the wrong pronoun, you can now get fired for mistakenly referencing someone by the wrong gender. HN would do better if it allowed room here rather then just purely going off of interpretation. Think about it. Let the downvotes moderate for opinionated stuff, I think it's excessive for you to actually bring the hammer down. Some contrarian advice is good for this young man and the community in general because it lives in a sea excessively positive advice.
I got a massive amount of downvotes for my responses and that's ok. What wasn't ok for me is your warning, because I know the next time you'll actually shadow ban, and that to me is crossing the line.
Social rules like that are intended to protect the community from jerky behaviour not spare the feelings of the individual who's strayed into jerkdom. They wouldn't practically work the other way - you're a jerk if enough people think you are.
If HN excommunicates people simply because a majority disagrees with them, then this place is not a good forum for science and intelligent discussion.
When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths... We've been wrong before, and we're likely going to be wrong again. That the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade and ideas. In light of that knowledge that we may be wrong, the best course of action, the safest course of action, is to go ahead and listen to the ideas on the other side. The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market. Those are the ideas that we can safely act upon. Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based on imperfect knowledge. That, at any rate, is the idea behind free speech. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.
So unless I explicitly threaten or insult someone. Let it be. Cast your vote. But to censor and threaten a ban? That's wrong. That's exactly what's going on here. Read carefully what I wrote, there are no threats, there are no insults, there are no explicit attacks; just my opinion. The only line crossed here is the threat of a ban; we all know Dang operates first on a warning then he bans people.
I think it is relevant. It shows that Jerks have important information that shouldn't be censored. The difference here is, I'm not being a jerk. People just like to think that way when they're told they're wrong. Nobody likes being told that they're utterly wrong.
>You are not Galileo limning new celestial truths
Yeah I'm declaring an even simpler truth. That Owen is unlikely to become one of the greatest programmers in the world. It's quite unlikely and even for a minor statement like that I'm getting a warning.
>it's not that complicated.
Isn't this mean? I mean are you implying that this concept is so complicated that I can't comprehend it? I obviously have enough intelligence to understand your point, so by saying this you're insulting me. Now you're a jerk. That's my interpretation.
We both know I'm trying to push for less restrictive rules around speech. It's better to address that point rather then endlessly repeating "don't be a jerk.". And, honestly, I wasn't really even a jerk.
>being asked nicely not to be a jerk on a public forum is not like being excommunicated
Dang issues a warning first, then shadow bans next, that's how he operates. He has records and I just got marked. That's what happened here. It wasn't just "asking nicely."
The crushing majority of jerks are simply jerks.
Yeah I'm declaring an even simpler truth. That Owen is unlikely
No, that's simply being a jerk.
Isn't this mean?
no
Dang issues a warning first, then shadow bans next, that's how he operates.
It's not 'how he operates' that I've seen.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32615625
See you're utterly and completely wrong. What may make you laugh is he basically teamed up with you, saying "it's not that hard". It's subtle jerkdom going on here from the both of you. But I mean who the hell cares?
Dang didn't lie or do anything wrong. He's just subtly acting like an asshole, like what you did, which is arguably worse then what I did.... Either way none of that stuff is a bannable offense imo. But according to Dang, if it happens enough times... it is.... just as long as you're not on his team.
You notice how much longer my post is then yours? I'm trying to engage in discussion. But you're dismissing it and presenting baseless shit... in essence insisting that I'm a jerk on every point. You're basically acting like a jerk here.
It's unequivocal. At least in this thread, between you and me, you're the one acting like an ass... not me.
>It's not 'how he operates' that I've seen.
then you're blind, or a liar. He does this 100%.
>No, that's simply being a jerk.
no. It's the truth.
It's perfectly age-appropriate for an 18 year old to feel ambitions like "be the best programmer in the world". This is healthy adolescent grandiosity—I felt similar things at that age, just like a lot of people. The proper way to react to that is to reflect back the health in it, share in his hope and excitement, and give some useful pointers about how to develop in his desired direction. To take it as some sort of statistical claim and well-actually him about how low his odds are and how delusional he is, all the while kicking down and belittling what he has achieved so far, is definitely asshole behavior. Would you tell a 12-year-old he'll never be a professional athlete, or a 5-year-old he'll never be a fireman? Statistically the odds are negligible, right?
The fact that you got triggered by an 18-year-old's ambition into trying to knock him down that hard made your comments obviously drenched with your own personal feelings, even though you expressed those feelings in an indirect way that pretended to be objective.
Perhaps you have some beliefs about how being brutally negative to other people is the best way to "help" them, but an open internet forum like HN is precisely the wrong place to do that—there's far too much room for misunderstanding which can easily turn into cruelty. If you're not concerned about "advice" turning into cruelty, then you don't have the other person's best interests at heart.
Transgender/pronoun/$culture-war issues have zero to do with this. When you bring that up in this context, it's clear that you were at least partly motivated by an extraneous agenda. That again indicates not having the other person's interests at heart.
Comparing yourself to Galileo is...rather a tall bar to clear, at least as grandiose as "becoming one of the best programmers". It's also beside the point. This is an internet forum. There are no Galileos here—the genre doesn't allow for it. What the genre does invite is a lot of supercilious comments that go way overboard with their rhetoric. This is not battling-for-truth or whatever; it's garden-variety internet fodder, nasty and tedious.
>"To take it as some sort of statistical claim and well-actually him about how low his odds are and how delusional he is, all the while kicking down and belittling what he has achieved so far, is definitely asshole behavior."
Whether or not this is ass hole behavior or not is a matter of opinion. What I'm sure we can both agree on is that what I said is the truth. And what's left is an argument on opinion, no different then a debate on whether or not you should tell a child if santa clause is real or not... but you're turning this difference of opinion into a bannable offense.
I am not a bully. Let's be clear, and I did Not harass. The worst thing I told him is that he's average, and his feelings were hurt.
> Would you tell a 12-year-old he'll never be a professional athlete, or a 5-year-old he'll never be a fireman? Statistically the odds are negligible, right?
Oh wow, this statement shows how ineffective my earlier santa clause example was in swaying your opinion. Let me put it this way... In US culture, people lie to kids. They talk about fantasies like the tooth fairy, santa clause and unrealistic occupations. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not provably a good thing either because there are tons of other cultures that do the exact opposite. There's no clear answer to this topic. What gets me here is that you're inserting your own opinion as definitive and enforcing your biases onto the forum.
Honestly, I wouldn't tell a 12 year old those things; but that's just a personal habit and not a decision I make based off of rationality. Thus, I wouldn't think it's at all bad to tell the 12 year old the cold hard truth either. An 18 year old on the other hand is a different story.
>You can't define these lines in some formal way, so even using a word like "define" is already a step away from useful.
US law functions on exact definitions. There is really good reasoning for this, but there is good reasoning for your viewpoint as well. What isn't helpful in my mind is a one sided opinion on this topic given that it's so obviously flying right in the face of hundreds existing systems (aka governments) that effectively uses exact definitions to govern people. When I ask for an exact definition it IS useful simply because such systems are literally "used" everywhere in systems of government.
>The fact that you got triggered by an 18-year-old's ambition
Ok, this is just your interpretation of it. I was never triggered by that. If anything what triggered me a little is how people interpreted my advice as "being an asshole"
>Perhaps you have some beliefs about how being brutally negative to other people is the best way to "help" them, but an open internet forum like HN is precisely the wrong place to do that—there's far too much room for misunderstanding which can easily turn into cruelty. If you're not concerned about "advice" turning into cruelty, then you don't have the other person's best interests at heart.
I don't have beliefs about being brutally negative. I have beliefs about being brutally Honest. Huge difference. Positive and honest advice is readily given until the only thing left to give is often the negative and honesty advice. And since so little of this advice is ever given out, it usually has the biggest impact because the person is often hearing it for the first time.
Imagine this scenario: If an 18 year old wanted to become the best celebrity actor in the world and wanted to give up school to go to LA to pursue that pipe dream... and I told him to not be idiotic and go back to school... is that bad or good? I feel this isomorphic scenario should help you empathize the other side of this coin EVEN if you still think the 18 y/o should be encouraged to pursue acting.
And let me re-emphasize another point. I'm not trying to change your mind. That's fundamentally impossible. What I am trying to convince you of is that you interjected your bias on a thing that has no clear conclusion. The rules as you acted on it, caused you to cross the line from moderation to censorship.
>Comparing yourself to Galileo is...rather a tall bar to clear, at least as grandiose
Let's be clear. I'm no Galileo. Galileo was an example. Not a comparison. He's an example to illustrate how biased we all are. ...How something so blindingly obvious can be mistaken for evil. Is not how grandiose and unrealistic Owen's goal is so blindingly obvious? I see a parallel here.
Either way... Given the number of people you banned Dang, I'm sure you banned someone comparable in stature to Galileo (actually... I personal know some of these people you banned); but I think part of what your saying here is that you don't give a shit and that HN isn't about that.
>This is an internet forum. There are no Galileos here—the genre doesn't allow for it.
And you're the one that fully defines what HN is? You define the Genre? I think it's push and pull. The users define it, and if they don't like your attempted redefinition, they'll leave. I'm sure you view HN as a nursery for aspiring dreamers and positive vibes but there's other vantage points as well. I view HN as a site for intellectual conversation. And for such conversations to remain intelligent; the content of these convos can't fully dictated by always being "nice" as the objective truth often offends unintentionally.
>Transgender/pronoun/$culture-war issues have zero to do with this. When you bring that up in this context, it's clear that you were at least partly motivated by an extraneous agenda. That again indicates not having the other person's interests at heart.
It's just an example, it's not evidence at all for an extraneous agenda. The purpose of the example is to try to find something you identify with. If you're woke then this failed. If you think it's a little crazy how a muscualr transgender swimmer is dominating female swimming.... well then I think you can see a parallel: how feelings and emotions take precedence over an objective and ugly truth. Either way, the point of analogies is to use comparable scenarios in hopes that it will move the needle forward in understanding. I think this failed.
>This is not battling-for-truth or whatever; it's garden-variety internet fodder, nasty and tedious.
Let me emphasize something, I'm not fighting for "justice" or "truth" anything like that. I use that "flowery" language to support a simple objective:
I simply want to come to a forum with intelligent people and state an opinion without worrying about being banned for how contrarian or different that opinion is. That's literally it.
> refusing to let go,
I can see how this can appear as an attack. I truly believe Owen was being dishonest about the extent of his usage of educational materials. I think you're misinterpreting it. I stick by my points just as much as you'll stick with your beliefs about this very topic. It's a natural thing, you won't be letting go either.
Or maybe it doesn't make a difference at all because people have to experience things themselves.
Make the strongest possible interpretation of the OP's post and you would end up commenting something insightful and kind, not something cruel under the false pretext of honesty and humility.