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Comment by jd | Hacker News Reader

It's weird how so many people are so paranoid. Why is he coming up with these elaborate explanations of why they dislike him so much?

Is his reasoning really something like this? Biz dudes needs rails to be popular so that they can pitch ideas while being clueless, but Zed has made rails less magic, so now the Biz dudes hate Zed because now they have to have real ideas instead of buzzwords.

Really an elaborate explanation for simple name-calling. Perhaps the rude guys are just that - rude guys. To over-think it is nothing but paranoia.

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Hmm,

I can see why someone, maybe a "MBA biz dude", might a tad upset about someone who goes out of his way to piss all over the reputation of Rails. There actually isn't anything wrong about Rails having a cool reputation if it is going be to accepted in an ordinary. working business.

Without ever having him, I am pissed at Zed because he has good ideas and he makes himself so hated that his good ideas will not get a hearing in an organization.

I mean, if he wanted to storm the Bastille and launch the Ruby-powered communist dictatorship of the proletariat, then his screw-the-biz-people rhetoric would make sense. But he clearly wants to conduct business himself while somehow not getting a clue that reputation is a part of business.

I don't know, but every time he writes something like this, it becomes a little bit harder to buy his "it's all an act" spiel. But he's not at all unhinged! I mean, who are you going to believe, Zed Shaw or your lying eyes?

I've hung out with him in person. He is a nice guy in real life, though very opinionated and with an overdeveloped sense of justice. He believes strongly in being nice to people who are nice to him and the converse.

Anyone can be nice to people who treat you nicely. It's not exactly difficult.

Character is how you deal with people who aren't nice.

Character is how you deal with people who aren't nice.

It's amazing to me how many people have still not come to terms with that truth. It's written in the oldest books in the world. I think it's particularly apt for the Internet age when conversations with strangers happen regularly.

I agree with you.

My point is just that there _is_ a drastic difference between Zed-in-person and Zed-online.

The last time I saw Zed in person was a bit tense, because he had threatened to hunt down my friend Kevin Clark and start a physical fight with him.

He came into a lightning-talk session at railsconf, cut in line to talk about his next project (Utu), and then left without listening to any other talks.

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