On Friday, 26 July 2013 at 05:10:55 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> If you have an opinion on something that doesn't amount to "it is
> good", then yes, you are seen by *many* people as being bad person who
> exhibits the sorts of ideas and beliefs that (slippery slope fallacy
> here) lead to atrocities (making such beliefs therefore unacceptable
> viewpoints - or at least unacceptable to speak and write).


There's a difference between expressing a negative opinion and expressing it in an insulting or offensive way. The latter tends to create an unpleasant atmosphere to work in.

On Fri, 26 Jul 2013 09:55:05 +0200
"Joseph Rushton Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@webdrake.net> wrote:

> On Friday, 26 July 2013 at 05:10:55 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > If you have an opinion on something that doesn't amount to "it
> > is
> > good", then yes, you are seen by *many* people as being bad
> > person who
> > exhibits the sorts of ideas and beliefs that (slippery slope
> > fallacy
> > here) lead to atrocities (making such beliefs therefore
> > unacceptable
> > viewpoints - or at least unacceptable to speak and write).
> 
> 
> There's a difference between expressing a negative opinion and expressing it in an insulting or offensive way. The latter tends to create an unpleasant atmosphere to work in.

True, but the quoted examples from the Rust NG looked quite benign
to me. If something as basic as that is deemed "insulting or
offensive", then that creates a chilling effect on the ability
to express negative opinions.

On Friday, 26 July 2013 at 08:42:10 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> True, but the quoted examples from the Rust NG looked quite benign
> to me. If something as basic as that is deemed "insulting or
> offensive", then that creates a chilling effect on the ability
> to express negative opinions.


Yes, but you are someone who throws around swearwords very clearly. Of course you have a high tolerance for crap! :-)

Not everyone is so thick-skinned, though, and it can create a better collaborative environment if everyone tries to avoid swearwords and pejorative terms (which isn't the same as censoring negative opinions -- in my experience, it helps convey them more effectively because the recipient has fewer grounds to take offence and use that as a reason to dismiss your opinion).

On Friday, 26 July 2013 at 10:09:10 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> Yes, but you are someone who throws around swearwords very clearly.

... casually. Phone auto-correct is fun. :-P

Incidentally, I think the censure on the Rust list was less because of the swearwords and more because of the sweeping casual dismissal of other projects.

On 07/26/13 06:57, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> to be. To look at THOSE quotes above and claim that they're unacceptable *IS* to claim that merely voicing a distaste for something is unacceptable, because those quotes say nothing more than that.
> 
> It's either an overreaction to the quotes, or it's whitewashing reality itself. There's nothing else in those quotes to take issue with unless

Don't worry - it's a self-correcting process. IOW it has a direct
effect on the end product (the language) quality. Evolution at work.
Sure, it can be frustrating when an interesting experiment, that
does have some potential, isn't likely to succeed, because of the
wrong choices that are being made. But the alternative, without the
natural selection process, would be even worse.
There's not /that/ much competition in this space, and many more-or-less
isolated niches, so there's enough room for everyone, at least initially.
Rust includes some nice ideas, hopefully it will be able to evolve and
stay around longer than eg XUL. Just like D, it's a good source of ideas,
inspiration and empirical evidence of what works and what does not.

artur

On Friday, 26 July 2013 at 01:48:36 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> Not to slam Rust or the Rust people, but I wouldn't call that an example
> of "class" so much as "new age nazi": where everything is
> incontrovertibly wonderful in it's own special way and any opinion
> contrary to that is categorically invalid and not to be tolerated (or
> must, at least, be first run through a rose-tinted castration filter).

I think there is a major difference between personal opinion and representing certain development team. Your personal opinion may be as harsh as possible and that is fine, but as a public representative of a community you should be prohibited to have any personal opinion at all. It is important to keep those two alter-egos different.

On Friday, 26 July 2013 at 10:09:10 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> Not everyone is so thick-skinned, though, and it can create a better collaborative environment if everyone tries to avoid swearwords and pejorative terms (which isn't the same as censoring negative opinions -- in my experience, it helps convey them more effectively because the recipient has fewer grounds to take offence and use that as a reason to dismiss your opinion).

You put the limit at the wrong place. It is ok to say that some piece of code is a shitty monstrosity, but ok to say that to someone.

People get often offended because they associate themselves with their code. This isn't a good thing, and a indicator that the dev may have trouble to adapt/be territorial.

You don't always more dev in your boat as it means management overhead (yes, even with FOSS, as someone have to review the code, discuss it, etc . . .).

On Friday, 26 July 2013 at 12:08:06 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
> You put the limit at the wrong place. It is ok to say that some piece of code is a shitty monstrosity, but ok to say that to someone.

But you can also convey the same negative opinion about the code without using that kind of language. If it makes it more likely the code author will take on board the criticism and react well to it, why not? It costs you much less to temper your language, than to deal with an offended or angry developer.

> People get often offended because they associate themselves with their code. This isn't a good thing, and a indicator that the dev may have trouble to adapt/be territorial.

Yes, it's good to draw a line between "me" and "my code", and in my experience good people in any discipline are more harshly critical of their own work than anyone else's. But I wouldn't use pejorative descriptions of code as a deliberate technique to smoke out too-possessive developers. It's important to distinguish between people who are arrogant or bad team players versus people who react badly because they're not confident and read, "this code is crap" as a euphemism for "the developer that wrote this is crap". (Which, be fair, is sometimes what people mean, and they use criticism of code as a technique to bully a developer they don't like.)

If you avoid pejorative language, you can still deal with the problem people but you have less risk of causing other problems with abrasive behaviour.

> You don't always more dev in your boat as it means management overhead (yes, even with FOSS, as someone have to review the code, discuss it, etc . . .).

Sure, it's just that I wouldn't make "can they deal with abrasive criticism?" the selection criteria. If I had to, I'd prefer "Can they handle problems and disagreements, even severe ones, with intelligence and courtesy?"

> But you can also convey the same negative opinion about the code without using that kind of language. If it makes it more likely the code author will take on board the criticism and react well to it, why not? It costs you much less to temper your language, than to deal with an offended or angry developer.
>

This discussion brought to my mind the quote (don't know who said
it):

“Obscenity is the sign of a weak mind trying to express itself
forcibly.”

However, I must admit I've known many people who have brilliant
minds that tend to enjoy using obscenity, so this cannot be
entirely true.  However, I do think the quote has some truth to
it as sometimes obscenity is used to add force to an argument,
when perhaps a little more thought would have simply produced a
better argument.

In honour of Nick through, I would like to end with a variation
on the above quote that he might enjoy more (of course, I have
removed the obscenity).

“Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate $#@%!^%%$%ers.”

On Friday, 26 July 2013 at 14:20:49 UTC, Craig Dillabaugh wrote:
> “Obscenity is the sign of a weak mind trying to express itself
> forcibly.”

"They say it's a sign of a limited vocabulary but I don't think that's true, because I know, oh, at least 127 different words and I still prefer fuck." (Billy Connolly)

:-)