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Comment by rmaccloy | Hacker News Reader

This is both a bad argument and kind of lacking a sense of humor, since programmers do this (point by point rebuttals) all the time (see: every popular thread on the LKML, ever)

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Even if programmers do something all the time, that doesn't mean it's right. The reason is simple: every opinion has arguments in favor of it. If someone offers five arguments in favor of an opinion, usually at least two are reasonable. If someone attempts to rebuke all five points, they're usually being unreasonable. It's also counterproductive, because bad counter-arguments call for counter-counter-arguments, which detracts from the actual points under discussoin. If you think an argument isn't persuasive and doesn't have much weight, then that is what you should say, instead of searching for some nitpicky way to counter the argument, usually ending up in discussions about semantics because you actually agree on the point.

As for this article: if this was intended to be humorous, then it contains far too much that seems to have been intended seriously, for my taste. After a few points he could have stopped beating the dead horse.

Wrapping criticism in humor is an annoying strategy similar to the 'poisoning the well' fallacy: as soon as someone tries to start a discussion, you can go "where's your sense of humor?" and your humorously wrapped argument remains unchallenged. That gets under my skin and may have impaired my humor detecting capabilities here.

I don't think your first paragraph follows (I think you can certainly contest every assertion in favor of a position without being illogical), although I agree the style is usually unproductive. I'd rather not get into debating it here, though.

The 'humor' I was referring to wasn't in the article (which is pretty bland) but in the fact that hey, this fits the stereotypical image of a programmer: slightly OCD (nitpicky) and lacking social grace. You'd think we'd be used to it :)

I think it's a bad practice in general, as it encourages nit-picking the small details and missing the main point of what someone says.

A programmer who isn't a nitpicker is a lousy programmer. Computers don't get the "main point" of what someone says. I'm not much of a nitpicker, which is my biggest problem when coding.

Discussions with humans is an entirely different domain than programming computers. I get the same urges to argue with someone point-by-point as anyone else does, and I try to quell it so that a useful discussion can take place.

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