
The Disinvitation - jarz
http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2020/09/12/TheDisinvitation.html
======
duskwuff
So, let me get this straight.

Conference asks Martin to give a presentation. No money is to change hands, no
contract is signed.

Conference changes their mind and decides to not have him speak after all.

Martin's reaction is to _throw around legal threats_ like "breech of contract"
[sic] and "tortious interference"???

Sounds to me like the conference dodged a bullet.

~~~
throwawaygh
I've never quite understood why Robert Martin carries so much currency in the
software development world. That whole portion of industry group-think -- what
to call it? consulting-revenue-oriented-dev-culture? you know, the
agile/xp/enterprise software/oop-cum-fp-design-pattern "flavor of the month
while pretending to be profound" thing -- had noble intentions but feels like
a huge left turn in retrospect. Fortunately that crowd is taken less and less
seriously as software progresses toward something more reminiscent of
traditional engineering; the next generation of the sort seems to be piling
into the "data science" world.

Given his views on software-related things, it's not particularly surprising
to me that his approach toward a dis-invitation is... provocative, designed to
go viral by tapping into certain aspects of a certain subset of dev culture,
and not particularly well thought out.

~~~
rektide
Clean Code filled niche about programming in the large, & yes, overall we had
a huge thought-leader driven worldview of computing & development.

------
dragonwriter
> The conference organizers are in breech of contract

“Breach”, and probably not. While Martin acknowledges there was no written
agreement, he provides little reason to believe that whatever communication
they had met the requirements for a contract.

He does provide, in arguing for breach of contract where he is the aggrieved
party, a much better (but still far from complete) argument for fraud where
attendees were the aggrieved party.

In addition to an actual contract, breach would depend on something he
strongly implies _did not occur_ , to wit, an actual disinvitation by the
organizers. It's clear that his contact _wanted_ Martin to voluntarily back
out based on the conflict created by the threatened boycott by other speakers,
and Martin seems to describe himself agreeing to do so to make things easy for
his contact. That's a change by mutual agreement, not a breach.

> The speakers who refused to speak if I spoke are guilty of tortious
> interference.

Assuming the required relationship (which may be disputable), Martin seems to
establish interference, but not the independently wrongful action that would
make it tortious.

Also, this is cute:

> I promised him I would not mention his name or the name of the conference on
> line.

But then:

> So, this time, I’ll let the legal options rest. Instead, I’m offering a
> virtual free talk at 10:00 AM CDT, on September 21st, the first day of the
> conference.

So, you've pretty much guaranteed that the conference, and probably your
contact since knowing the conference will make that not too hard for people to
deduce, will be publicly identified online soon, even if not under your
byline.

------
greenyoda
It was actually easy to identify the conference in question by searching for
the author's name plus "Chicago" and "conference". DuckDuckGo's search summary
shows him as a speaker, but the actual page does not. And the date of his own
talk coincides with the first day of that conference.

------
cholmon
What opinions has Bob Martin expressed that are objectionable?

~~~
jddj
From memory I _think_ (please, someone correct me if I'm wrong) there were
some articles about hiring on merit rather than promoting gender (and possibly
race/culture) diversity as an ideal?

~~~
zarkov99
Isn't it tragic that that stands out as objectionable?

~~~
antjanus
it's tragic that people think merit-based promotions and hiring actually
exist. Meritocracy is flawed and extremely biased -- because people that
enforce meritocracy are biased.

Martin himself shows himself to be a biased person which he shows time and
time again on Twitter. What if he were to decide who got promoted or hired for
companies?

There are literally studies on this.

~~~
dgellow
Who isn't bias? That's what defines an individual personality. If we would
remove everybody who expresses some biases you wouldn't have that much choice
of people at the end.

The fact that people have bias cannot be the issue in itself, problems occur
when they are ignored and not taken in account by systems.

For example a hiring process can take in account biases and have ways to
correct for them, for example by avoiding to have one single interviewer
having way more weight than another, by doing blind reviews, etc.

~~~
antjanus
so you're saying to avoid biases, we should have a diverse and inclusive set
of interviewers that can counter each others' blind spots.

And that meritocracy on its own cannot work because everyone is biased in one
way or another. Got it.

~~~
dgellow
I don't say the part about meritocracy, I don't believe that's a jump that
makes sense, but the rest is correct, yes :)

I see meritocracy as an ideal we would like to be able to tend to, not
something that has been achieved in the past or current time.

------
tartoran
I think he shouldn't have been dis-invited from the conference. But, on the
other hand, I find Rob Martin overrated and very much like an snakeoil
salesman, he needs to peddle something. He is very opinionated and his opinion
changes too quickly to be useful, so he's not a person I really want to waste
my time learning from. There are plenty of people out there who don't pretend
to be gurus and yet what they teach is infinitely more useful.

------
quantified
I wouldn’t have cancelled the contract, we’re not getting anywhere with purity
tests. We can appreciate what George Washington & Thomas Jefferson did AND
disapprove of their slaveholding. Life is ambiguous and messy.

The one rant I read indicates that he thinks the country was not founded on
slavery and that Reconstruction was not thwarted, Jim Crow did not exist,
federal redlining of Black neighborhoods until recently did not happen, and
none of the people that I’ve hung out with who have chatted about f’ing up n
__ __*s actually exist. That’s an issue for another venue and I applaud his
candor in stating it, sort of a flat-earther earnestness.

~~~
shaggyfrog
This is not a discussion looking back 250 years at someone. It's looking back
on the behaviour of someone living 1 year ago. Or yesterday. Or today.

~~~
quantified
True... I can’t glean your point, though. Are we disagreeing somewhere, or are
you amplifying/concurring? Am I missing something so egregious (a call to race
war or similar) that he’s an incitement danger on the order of a Richard
Spencer? I don’t even agree with him on every tech subject.

------
mplewis
"Disinviting someone from a virtual conference who can draw a potentially
large audience away from that virtual conference is not a particularly
intelligent tactic."

I think Uncle Bob greatly overestimates his pull in the tech talks world.

~~~
crawfordcomeaux
And if not, certainly seems to value quantity over quality.

That's pre-apocalyptic thinking.

------
jebronie
cancel culture is awful

~~~
rektide
There is an authoritarianism to it. There's almost never any trial, never any
jury. We have these codes of conduct but there's no justice system around
them, no paths to renewal or forgiveness.

Perhaps a write up with what the charges are, to start, is due.

Then the person can reply, appeal or try to say that they are trying to learn
& prove & apologize.

We have had to tolerate & had to endure humongous shitbirds on this poor
planet for way too long. People should be fed up, up to our ears with terrible
behavior, & seemingly nothing to put a damper on it, endlessly ever the
malignant poisonous people grabbing attention & stroking their demented egos
in public. We do need a way for civil society to begin to emerge defenses, to
say, no, you are not a civic participant here. But I also think the current
CoC system is remarkably cruel & unjust, almost everywhere, & cause of undue
unnecessary harm & division & schizming. (But not with BM).

~~~
cmxch
Then create a separation between person and profession. That would limit the
scope to the location of the offense.

------
rektide
Terroristic response. Not doing it but basically the whole post is about how
much might & shit he could reign down on those who dare ruin & cross him & the
volunteer activities he was happy to do as a favor for a while.

