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Comment by blasdel | Hacker News Reader

The thing is this isn't something new, I and a number of other people have been enraged by this for eight years now.

Over those years it's grown in usage exponentially, and so has his fame as a sportswriter for team Apple. Throughout that period he's continued to brush off all kinds of attempts to clean up bugs, define ambiguous behavior, or fix the security vulnerabilities. It hasn't mattered what approach people have taken, he just does not give a shit. Here's an example from last week: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2012-Octo...

He's spent so long burning off any goodwill I would have for him on the matter, being cordial just isn't a priority anymore. NERD RAGE.

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You've been enraged by the handling of a text-to-HTML converting Perl script written by a tech writer?

You're right: he just does not give a shit. I can see why. What possible upside could there be to engaging with someone who handles themselves like you are here?

You've never been enraged by poorly written tools or technologies? There have been times I wished I could reach through my monitor and throttle some well-meaning idiot for wasting hours or days of my time.

Imagine that you're a mechanic working on a motor that uses the ProprietaryNew fastener (hex heads? so 20th century!). Unfortunately, the only ProprietaryNew wrenches are made out of cheap metal, and the sockets strip with regularity. You can't imagine saying a few nasty words about the parentage of everyone in ProprietaryNewCo?

You have not yet attained the Zen of HN :(

Gruber has a long-standing money-back policy

What about a time-back policy?

Actually I think he does give a shit, he just feels that things could be a lot worse than they are and tinkering isn't necessarily going to improve things. Given how widely used it is there is some merit to this argument.

From a comment on Twitter yesterday in response to someone, it doesn't seem that Gruber is particularly interested in engaging with this (though I may be wrong). If that is the case I suspect we'll see a forking of the project and we'll get to see whether a committee will do better.

It may well do - Jeff has a good track record at getting things done and is well respected and well liked - but personally I wouldn't put my mortgage on it because as well intentioned as these things are we all know how design by committee usually turns out.

"Enraged" huh? For "_eight years_"?

Care to show us your alternative? It'll be on Github or GoogleCode, or maybe your personal blog, somewhere we can download it, try it out, and criticize it too, right?

Surely 8 years of rage is enough encouragement to write your own replacement for ~1000 odd lines of Perl?

Or by "enraged", did you mean "annoyed enough to write critical posts on random internet sites, but not motivated enough to spend an evening or two solving the problem myself"?

"NERD RAGE" indeed…

There are many great reimplimentations, another would only compound the interoperability issue.

The real problem cannot be solved without some forward action on his part. He has refused over and over again.

"The real problem cannot be solved without some forward action on his part."

Sure it can - you write something better, then get everybody who's already using Gruber's version or one of it's presumably also-flawed reimplementations to switch to yours. Or, is "8 years of enragement" really just keyboard-warrior-hyperbole on your part and an excuse to criticize someone who's achieved widespread adoption of some code you claim is 2nd rate, but which haven't bothered to improve or replace?

Besides, it sounds to me like David Greenspan has come up with a fine solution.

This is bot a privilege issue. Nobody appointed Gruber. Just do a better job and you'll be fine without his permission.

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