Comment by freedomben

> Seems weird to switch to develop faster and complain about people conflating the two aspects when this thread is clearly talking about runtime performance, triggered by the benchmark claims

It doesn't look to me like GP switched to develop and complained of conflation. The switch happened higher up the thread by wood_spirit, and GP just continued the conversation (and called out the tendency to conflate, without calling out a specific person).

On a meta note, I wish this trend of saying "it seems weird" and then calling out some fallacy or error would die. Fallacies are extremely common and not "weird", and it comes off as extremely condescending.

It happens quite frequently on HN (and surely other places, though I don't regularly patronize those). So to be clear, this isn't critcism levelled at you exclusively. (I even include myself as target for this criticism, as I've used the expression previously on HN as well, before I thought more about it).

Firstly, in this case and in most cases where that expression is used, it's actually weird to call it weird[1]. Fallacies, logic errors, and other mistakes are extremely natural to humans. Even with significant training and effort, we still make those mistakes routinely.

Secondly, it seems like it's often used as a veiled ad hominem or insult. It's entirely superfluous to add. In this case you could have just said "you complained about people conflating the two aspects and then conflated them yourself." (It still wouldn't have been correct as GP didn't conflate them, but it would have been more direct and clear).

Thirdly, it comes off as condescending[2]. It's sort of like saying, "whoa dude, we're all normal and don't make mistakes, but you're weird and do make mistakes." In reality, we all do it so it's not weird at all.

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weird

  1: of strange or extraordinary character : ODD, FANTASTIC
  2: of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural : MAGICAL

[2]: The irony of this is not lost on me. I can definitely see how this comment might also come off as condescending. I don't intend it to be, but it is a ridiculously long comment for such a simple point. It also included a dictionary check which is also frequently a charactersitc of condescending comments. I don't intend it to be condescending, merely reflective of self-analytical, but as is my theme here, we all make mistakes :-)