Comment by otterley
2 days ago
> The title was the point of the post.
I still find it incredibly troubling. Not because the substance was wrong, but because a person of your caliber has stooped to the level of writing provocative headlines and language to attract attention. I strongly believe world-class technologists are supposed to be above that sort of thing. Leadership matters: not just thought leadership, but attitudinal leadership.
The funniest thing about this post is that I was writing it, in my head, to a specific group of developers I've worked with, and who I know to be smart and more talented than me. What I should have seen coming was that when I described a group of people as the smartest developers I know, everybody who read it would think it was about them.
Live and learn.
fwiw, I don't think it was deliberately provocative for the goal of "attracting attention", it seemed to be his genuine belief.
I remember feeling similarly after seeing so many people denying what had already changed.
He called it A heartfelt provocation.
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> consider how difficult it would be to find a nice way of writing an article
Writing is often difficult. That's what makes good writing so distinctive and valuable. Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's not worth putting in the effort.
> "You are all fucking idiots" is sometimes a reasonable starting point.
It might be a good starting point in one's head (which, admittedly, it often is for me, but I then try to convert that into something more persuasive and less divisive). I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.
> I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.
In a saner timeline I'm right there with you. Certain types of policy and cognitive errors, though, remove the floor on communication decency--some popular conceptions are just so incredibly backwards that it's seemingly a disservice to treat them as anything worthy of more gentle correction.
It wasn't my starting point.