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Comment by zeeg | Hacker News Reader

I was one of the people who made a comment about this.

I'm not going to defend that I think attempting to replace sed/grep is a bad idea (especially not in 140 characters), but I will defend people's opinions.

Everyone has one, most of them you won't agree with. Whether they're nice or not. I'm generally not a nice person, at least online, that's my choice. That said, especially with this being the internet, you have to deal with others opinions.

While some people may go above and beyond (even myself sometimes) and actually be very mean with their opinion, that doesn't change the fact that they're entitled to it. If you don't like it, ignore it. If you can't ignore it, then you won't survive.

The fact that people somehow managed to turn this into the continuous drama debate about gender is just pathetic.

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You're entitled to be mean about things you don't like? But when other people have opinions on your opinions, you're suddenly a live-and-let-live guy? C'mon.

Of course, you can't even apply your own advice here. People have opinions that maybe there was some gender bias going on, but are you ignoring them? No, you're reflexively bashing them.

And you certainly didn't just "ignore it" when you came across some code you didn't like. So if you've got a principled intellectual stand here, I can't find it. As far as I can tell, your take is, "I like being a dick, but you people should shut up."

I think the point was, she wasn't trying to replace sed/grep. She had a script which she wrote and got some benefit from and decided, why not, post it on github. That said, I'm glad at least someone stuck to their opinion. I don't see the problem in criticizing the utility of software. Sure, we should all be nice, but that doesn't mean we can't be critical. How many people defending her have left negative comments on Show HN posts?

Also, if you thought she made sed/grep worse, wait till you see my frankenstein: https://github.com/hollingsworthd/POSIXplorer

at least someone has the balls to stick with his opinion. gender might actually be part of the issue. people are way more protective over women's feeling than they are over mens. is that reverse sexist or something?

I don't get why people immediately turn into:

a) a gender debate, and b) act as if programming is the only place where people have harsh opinions.

get over it. if someone on the internet somewhere on the other side of the world says something that you don't like, and you break into tears, you should be reexamining your sense of self-worth.

agitated? sure, why not. but, breaking into tears? really? I blame hollywood, and commercials(yes, seriously).

Why do you choose to not be a nice person (online)? Just curious.

Also, I think the "If you don't like, ignore it. If you can't ignore it, then you won't survive," is self-serving advice. It'd be easier to take seriously if you were one of the nice people.

Why does it matter to you what some dude, somewhere in the globe thinks of you? Just curious.

Because he has a lot of followers, and is influential in his own way. In other words, he's not just "some dude".

In the words of Nick Hornby, "Some guy on the 'net thinks I suck, and he should know: he's got his own blog."

I don't necessarily choose it, I just don't go out of my way (like most people) to be nice.

I would argue, that what makes me who I am (a driven, passionate person) also leads to traits like being honestly vocal about things. Whether the way these things are presented is directly related or not is a little bit different.

If I see something I don't like, whether it's on the internet, at work, or just in general, I will usually say I don't like it. Now Twitter doesn't make a great means of communication for things like this (e.g. you can really provide much insight, or realistically follow up), it does make it easy.

I would argue that people who are unwilling to give their opinion (and I know that there's many on both sides of everything, that are quiet), are simply forcing themselves into an uncomfortable situation.

Often you (or rather I) will deal with the results of your opinion, but for the freedom it offers, and the drive it gives me, I'll stick by it.

That said, I admire Heather for doing something, but I am rather unhappy that the result of this was a (IMO, unnecessary) blog post, a ton of ignorant comments on the internet, and more importantly, people attempting to turn the situation into something it isnt.

...and more importantly, people attempting to turn the situation into something it isnt.

The only party I've seen so far actually trying to make this storm in a teacup into anything other than what it is — namely, people being assholes on the internet — is you, with your weak, if persistent, attempts to make it about gender. It's not, it never was, and I'm pretty sure you know that, so playing that card is cheap and dishonest, at best.

I'm no psychologist, but to my mind, that kind of behavior absolutely reeks of awareness that the thing you're trying to make be about something else wasn't kosher in the first place.

People give me shit about code and no one cares because I'm like everyone else here--male and single :(

being driven and passionate, and having the social skills to be able criticise without upsetting people are not mutually exclusive.

"If I see something I don't like, whether it's on the internet, at work, or just in general, I will usually say I don't like it."

Regarding the views of the larger public who don't know you, who cares what your feelings are?

If your goal is to reflect your driven, passionate, intelligent nature to affect the public, then what's more relevant is WHY you don't like it - what, specifically is problematic in your experience. Getting to that point isn't white-lie, pc, or bending over backward to be polite - it's simply more relevant.

Utility-wise, isn't it more efficient to share that stuff, and just skip the "it sucks, it stinks, it's awful" comments? I don't know how you actually communicate since I haven't noticed other comments of yours but in general it seems to me that there's a major difference between venting and informative criticism - and mixing them can definitely reduce your efficiency in positively affecting others.

Yea, it's odd to me how much crap you three guys are getting for this.

It's not like you guys criticized the person. You criticized code.

My goodness. I wish someone would come and criticize my code. It would be a great learning experience.

This wasn't criticism. It was ridicule.

Agreed. He didn't write: "I think this is a bad solution", he wrote "Ever wanted to make sed or grep worse?". It's like zeeg can't see the sheer snark in the comment, like he believes that Heather was deliberately trying to make Unix worse. Which she wasn't.

Now he's surprised that he's been called out on it.

why is trying to replace sed/grep a bad idea?

for example: ack is really, really useful.

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