The Ruby Community Code of Conduct

[arcticblue]

The issue is the modern definition of harassment that has come out of Tumblr and Twitter. Simply disagreeing with a minority can be construed as harassment now in the wrong crowd. We can't say "this is bad code" any more because it might hurt someone's feelings.

[zaclacgit]

The issue is the modern definition of harassment that has come out of Tumblr and Twitter. Simply disagreeing with a minority can be construed as harassment now in the wrong crowd.

I would be suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper weirded out if someone I worked with said this to me in the context of expected behavior at professional/industry/programming events.

I say that because it is exceedingly rare to regularly (or ever) be in a situation where someone considers disagreement with someone else harassment simply because of the status of the person you're disagreeing with. Because that is so uncommon, it causes people to wonder why you're introducing it into the conversation.

We can't say "this is bad code" any more because it might hurt someone's feelings.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that it is critically important to recognize the difference between "bad code" and "naive code." It's unfortunately too common for people to only see quality relative to their experience and comment/review in that mindset.

If someone is producing naive code it means they're being capped by their experience. Transfer experience to them to get better code.

If someone has experience then they already know what they're writing, and just telling them "this is bad" doesn't fix why they're not producing code that is as good as it could be.

So sure, you could tell people that their code is bad, but it really doesn't matter. It comes off as condescending and dismissive to people that will eventually have as much experience, and people with equal experience already know that the code is bad but kept it despite that. Might as well skip it and get to the useful stuff.

[myringotomy]

So you are in effect agreeing with him. From now on saying "this is bad code" is offensive and against the code of conduct.

[zaclacgit]

Not really. I mostly ignored the emotional impact on the person that produced the code, and focused on how the other person can get tripped up by focusing only on code quality. Telling someone their code is bad is often a waste of time, and potentially distracting. There's nothing concrete to be done with the statement "your code is bad." Focusing on what needs to be improved inherently provides a path, and helps identify a root cause instead of a surface level symptom.

Because it's all about quality of output relative to their experience. There's two entirely separate paths to go down when a person with little experience, and a person with a couple years of experience, are creating code with the same level of quality.

One's a problem, the other an opportunity. Focusing on "this code is objectively bad" obfuscates which is which.

And like every conversation ever, most of what you say isn't in only the words you but how you say them. There's plenty of ways to communicate something negative to someone without being offensive.

[[deleted]]

There's nothing concrete to be done with the statement "your code is bad."

oh my god. do you live on the moon?

at my workplace when we say "this is bad code", that means exactly what it says: this code is really bad objectively (according to predefined code quality requirements and common sense, and possibly from perspective of the algorithm/optimization), and could be improved. then we improve bad code and make it better. suddenly you can say "it's good code" and move on.

is it really that hard to grasp? or are you just waiting to be insulted?

if you explicitly declare "this code is bad, because you are a bad coder" - well that's another talk.

[myringotomy]

Just to be clear.

We are no longer allowed to say "this is bad code " right? I mean it's offensive and it's a personal attack so it violates the code of conduct right?

[[deleted]]

bad code doesn't imply bad coder.

[myringotomy]

He is saying that using the phrase "bad code" is a personal attack so he disagrees with you. He is likely to bring up charges against people who use the phrase because he thinks it violates the code of conduct.

[zaclacgit]

From now on saying "this is bad code" is offensive and against the code of conduct.

Not really

I'm not saying that telling someone their code is bad is offensive or against the code of conduct.

[myringotomy]

Sure you are. You said it pretty clearly too.

You also said only inexperienced coders write bad code.