Comment by xena
3 years ago
Good news: I'm never going to write about V again: https://xeiaso.net/blog/against-toxicity-programming-languag...
3 years ago
Good news: I'm never going to write about V again: https://xeiaso.net/blog/against-toxicity-programming-languag...
I don't see how that follows? That blog post basically says "don't be toxic about languages". Unless you're using a much broader definition of "toxic" than I'd expect, that doesn't mean you can't write about languages, including fair critiques and even comparisons. I mean, take... "old school" PHP. By all accounts, PHP used to have a lot of sharp edges (in the sense that it was easy to "cut yourself" on it and accidentally do something bad). This was a legitimate, valid problem. It didn't mean that PHP was irredeemably bad, it didn't mean that a dev was A Bad Programmer for writing PHP, but it was true. You can discuss languages, even comparing them to others and pointing out flaws where they exist, without being "toxic" about it.
A lot of that post is actually me wanting to be sure that my legacy isn't one of perceived toxicity. When you are in as many minority groups as I am, then you end up becoming an unpaid existential ambassador and you need to be hyper careful to not look like an asshole or do things that could possibly make you look like an asshole because people will assume that being an asshole is a representative sample of those groups. It is not, but logic is not this species' strong suit.
Plus, writing about how V is outright lying in its documentation gets boring because it's too easy. There's no real nuance or the like to it. It's someone overpromising and underdelivering, and then you also get the V cult going after you and sending so much hatemail. It's not worth it.
Okay, fair; those are good reasons. I don't think those fall under the "toxic" label, but they stand on their own regardless.
(Not meant as an attack. I suspect that I might be splitting hairs too finely here; I can be a little overenthusiastic about terminology. If so, sorry.)
Hate mail? Really? Care to post an example?
8 replies →
Well if you really felt that way I think you'd take any toxic programming articles down. They are etched into your GitHub at this point, so people will still reference them if eager... But at least taking that action of pulling such posts off your website will speak volumes about your character and standing by your words. Otherwise it's just more lip-service; not much different than Alex's lip-service you draw attention to.
Implying here that any post about V is necessarily going to be toxic, because there aren’t any nice things to be said about it?
Any post criticising V is seen as toxic by their supporters, apparently. You can see many examples of this in this thread.