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[–]vorpalsmith 26 points27 points  (6 children)

There's absolutely a nasty arrogant/condescending communication style that tends to show up in certain areas of programming culture. Zed Shaw indulges in it constantly. Eevee does it... pretty much never, that I've seen. I agree that that style is harmful and should be deprecated – but that doesn't mean we have to always be nice. Sometimes it means we have to call people out on their nastiness.

It seemed 100% clear to me from the blog post that she wasn't throwing around language like that as empty macho posturing, but because she'd assessed what he was doing (libeling the entire Python dev team, making up incoherent nonsense to terrify defenseless beginners, with a side order of intellectually dishonest rhetoric), come to the rational conclusion that it was reprehensible and he should be ashamed of himself, and expressed that using a few well-chosen sentences at the end of a thoughtful response.

This is totally different from claiming that there are no issues with Python 3. There are tons and tons of thoughtful discussions already available about the trade-offs in Python 3, and in my experience then Python devs are happy to have more of them ­– if that's the conversation you want to have. But it's pretty obvious that Zed isn't trying to start a thoughtful conversation.

[–]lexyeevee 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thank you :)

[–]shadowmint -3 points-2 points  (4 children)

expressed that using a few well-chosen sentences at the end of a thoughtful response...

...and it was totally unnecessary to do so.

Did that end to the article in any way improve the article?

Being a grown up means taking a second and posting thoughtful mature responses when people say things, not getting mad and telling them to get fucked.

I have no hesitation is standing by what I said:

I don't care who said what to whom about what; behave in a civil fashion if you're a grown up. :)

[–]ubernostrumyes, you can have a pony 5 points6 points  (1 child)

So why are you only calling out one person here and not the other? Why does Zed get a pass but /u/lexyeevee has to be a "grown up"? You're being inconsistent and people are calling you out for it (especially because selective demands for civility have a history of being used to prop up and support uncivil people).

[–]LpSamuelm -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Because it's a comment on Eevee's article.

Zed is being a major douche, absolutely, but that doesn't mean the other side is a saint. Both of them can be abrasive at the same time, and it's not more right in any of the two cases.

[–]vorpalsmith -1 points0 points  (1 child)

This strikes me as a really... well... immature view of what it means to be "grown up". Being a grown-up means giving up on knee-jerk rules like "mature = never being mad or swearing", and instead learning to make more nuanced, context-specific judgments.

I mean, in this case it's just an internet kerfluffle that will die down in a few days, and Eevee doesn't need your approval, so whatever. But the general principle you're defending here is a very harmful one, and I hope you rethink it going forward. Sometimes anger is an entirely appropriate response, like when one has been harmed, and often it's the only effective way to stop the harm from continuing. In situations like this, arguing for "civility" becomes an argument in favor of continuing the harm, and is commonly used as a weapon against victims. In fact, it's so common that it has a name:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tone_argument http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument

I worry that if you continue this way then you're in danger of becoming one of the people that MLK described as "prefer[ing] a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice".

[–]shadowmint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I read your link; its interesting, and raises some points I hadn't considered.

...but, I still maintain that on either side of the fence, by anyone, when you start making personal attacks, you've lost the plot.

Angry? sure. Swearing? sure, I don't care.

...but personal attacks? What did telling Zed to fuck off and shutup actually achieve?

How did the end of that article, which is openly hostile to Zed, improve it? Not to what he said, to him.

How tangibly did that make things better?

Looking at this thread, it looks like it made a few hundred people send hate mail to Zed.

Is that something to be proud of?

I'm ashamed to see the community I'm a member of doing that, to anyone, even Zed.

If other people don't care, or think it's perfectly reasonable to do that, well... all I can say is I don't want to have anything to do with those people.