You don't think that's a learning experience either?
People in the tech, and geek community, are stubborn mother fuckers. You have to have a badass debate skill to get even the most obvious ideas into people's heads. Simply being right doesn't mean a damn thing.
Programming Arguments are one of the best places to get these sort of skills. Not only are you trying to convince the unconvincable, you're trying to appeal to the crowd.
Oh please, I don't buy that argument because I have seen too many language arguments devolve into Emacs/Vi pro/anti wars.
The people loving language wars are generally trolls, which carefully craft "arguments" that infuriate people while being wrong in a way that needs long expositions to answer.
I do expect better than that type of garbage from HN.
Edit: I do buy jacquesm's argument about pro and cons for languages; the fit with different problem spaces are different for different paradigms, etc.
For example, I'm personally going back to functional programming now, hoping for a new dawn in the coming mass-multicore world. But I'm not going to do any lisp language wars, since that is as useful as Emacs/Vi "debates".
Edit 2: If someone really think to learn something from language wars, why not just Google for a few? There are lots of them to review, on lots of web sites.
He did not call you a troll, he called people that love language wars trolls.
If you self identify with 'people that love language wars' then that's something you can't blame him for.
Loving language wars and debating the finer points of the pros and cons of various languages are two different things.
Language wars are almost without exception based in the people having them, not in the relative merits of the languages.
Think of it as religion: If you were born in Iran you probably are a muslim, if you were born in Italy chances are you're catholic and if you were born in India chances are you are a hindu.
You could have debates all day long about 'whose' religion is the better one (or the true one), but it would be an argument mostly rooted in to your familiarity with a certain religion because of your heritage.
An objective argument would essentially require parties to give some ground based on real arguments, in a language war that rarely if ever happens.
Debate is to advance a common viewpoint, not to get your way. Then a gun will suffice. And plenty of religious wars indeed devolve in to violence.
Comments
Debating which language was best is how I learned to program better, notice flaws easier, and simply argue my case more efficiently.
But for such a debate to be meaningful you need context.
Without context (application, and all the other requirements) it is just so much hot air.
You don't think that's a learning experience either?
People in the tech, and geek community, are stubborn mother fuckers. You have to have a badass debate skill to get even the most obvious ideas into people's heads. Simply being right doesn't mean a damn thing.
Programming Arguments are one of the best places to get these sort of skills. Not only are you trying to convince the unconvincable, you're trying to appeal to the crowd.
Oh please, I don't buy that argument because I have seen too many language arguments devolve into Emacs/Vi pro/anti wars.
The people loving language wars are generally trolls, which carefully craft "arguments" that infuriate people while being wrong in a way that needs long expositions to answer.
I do expect better than that type of garbage from HN.
Edit: I do buy jacquesm's argument about pro and cons for languages; the fit with different problem spaces are different for different paradigms, etc.
For example, I'm personally going back to functional programming now, hoping for a new dawn in the coming mass-multicore world. But I'm not going to do any lisp language wars, since that is as useful as Emacs/Vi "debates".
Edit 2: If someone really think to learn something from language wars, why not just Google for a few? There are lots of them to review, on lots of web sites.
You look at me and say "troll", I look at you and say "delusional."
He did not call you a troll, he called people that love language wars trolls.
If you self identify with 'people that love language wars' then that's something you can't blame him for.
Loving language wars and debating the finer points of the pros and cons of various languages are two different things.
Language wars are almost without exception based in the people having them, not in the relative merits of the languages.
Think of it as religion: If you were born in Iran you probably are a muslim, if you were born in Italy chances are you're catholic and if you were born in India chances are you are a hindu.
You could have debates all day long about 'whose' religion is the better one (or the true one), but it would be an argument mostly rooted in to your familiarity with a certain religion because of your heritage.
An objective argument would essentially require parties to give some ground based on real arguments, in a language war that rarely if ever happens.
Debate is to advance a common viewpoint, not to get your way. Then a gun will suffice. And plenty of religious wars indeed devolve in to violence.
I didn't call you troll, just that trolls argue similar positions.
>>You look at me and say "troll", I look at you and say "delusional."
But that comment was quite trollish in just dismissing an argument with a one word insult. Good bye.
I know you didn't call me troll. If you read very carefully (And it's clear you didn't) I never suggested you called me troll.
post script It's 'goodbye'
post post script My net out of this conversation was +11