Would you please not post uncivilly to HN, regardless of how annoying you find someone's comment? This kind of thing degrades discussion and provokes worse from others. We're hoping to do better than that here.
i suspect "smart alec" was chosen with exactly the intention you're expecting--ie, i'm not a native English speaker but i believe the term when used by adults to refer to other adults is benign--perhaps like the "G"-rated version of "wise-ass" or "pedant." Maybe wrong here, but benefit of the doubt perhaps....
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Would you please not post uncivilly to HN, regardless of how annoying you find someone's comment? This kind of thing degrades discussion and provokes worse from others. We're hoping to do better than that here.
i suspect "smart alec" was chosen with exactly the intention you're expecting--ie, i'm not a native English speaker but i believe the term when used by adults to refer to other adults is benign--perhaps like the "G"-rated version of "wise-ass" or "pedant." Maybe wrong here, but benefit of the doubt perhaps....
No, it's a putdown. This breaks the HN guideline against calling names in arguments (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
The account also has a history of being snarky.