I am not an asshole, and so can you
medium.com
medium.com
Calling a developer out for what they said on Twitter is like hating on a mechanic for something you overhead at a bar. You might choose to not get your car serviced there, but don't imply that they shouldn't be working on cars. They're obviously skilled.
I'm sure the poster has their own political views which others would find inconvenient or even downright horrible.
Furthermore, the inability to compartmentalize between an individual's work and their beliefs creates lots of practical problems. When one writes code, they are subject to the guidelines of the project and represent themselves purely from their role as programmer. What they do outside this is not in the scope of the project.
Discounting an entire software project because one of the contributors outside their duties as a project member said some unsavory things, is outright idiotic. The relevant things here are whether they're good maintainers (and not good people, that's irrelevant) in addition to the technical qualities of the software itself.
(By the way, I love how the question about working with a child molester used a gendered pronoun.)
Mark 1 against the author. The presumption that I would sense a "but" there makes you an asshole. Quit projecting onto other people. Beyond that, what "but" would there even be? I can't even imagine a "...but" statement that would connect in a sensible manner to the previous statements. But what? But you don't like icecream!? What exception is a person who "sensed a but" there supposed to expect?
>As I waded through that trainwreck of thread (I don't recommend actually reading this, you will end up a worse person for it) a few thoughts struck me:
Mark 2 for the author being an asshole. The presumption that you are absolutely right with no ability to be wrong - so people should simply take you at your all-knowing word instead of investigate for themselves. A respectable person would say "Take a look, make your own conclusions. All the evidence is right there in front of you." while an asshole would say "judge them how I judge them because I'm right, don't bother looking."
>we are seeing this deluded concept of freedom of speech butt heads with doing what is right.
The consistently loaded terminology to form a bias in the reader is quite annoying to read.
Free speech means that people have the right to say things you don't agree with. In the letter of the law, it's merely a guarantee you won't be imprisoned for anything you say (with very few exceptions related to national security and local jurisdictions against hate speech and threats against another person). Regardless, when most people say freedom of speech they actually mean freedom of expression. Typically as defined by Article 19 of the ICCPR [0]. That includes opinions that the author might find distasteful.
>nor does it mean that anyone has to give you a platform from which you can spout your hate
Twitter is a public platform where anyone can spout their hate until Twitter decides to close their account. As a public platform, people are free to publicly criticize anyone using it as a platform. What the author should mean to say is that nobody is required to give the person an audience.
Personally, I agree with @meh - with the exception of working with a child molester. Knowledge of a crime and not reporting it would get me in trouble with the law. Furthermore, let's make this example a bit less hyperbolic and more realistic.
"Would you accept code and work with someone you know is a 3rd wave feminist?"
The answer is, of course, yes. While I don't agree with a majority of their views for various reasons - that doesn't matter. If their code is up to scratch and they are contributing to the project, their personal beliefs do not matter.
In a hyperbolic statement:
"Would you accept code and work with someone you know drinks alcohol?"
Well I'd be shit out of luck if I didn't. Nearly every single programmer I know drinks. I'm as rare as naturally occurring astatine. Luckily I'm able to put these sorts of differences behind me, because in the context of coding, they are unimportant. If I were running for President and my selected Vice was a self-declared Communist, these belief differences might matter a bit more.