

Giles Bowkett summons monsters - ColinWright
http://raganwald.posterous.com/giles-bowkett-summons-monsters

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samdk
I like this post very much. HN discussions often end up being about minor
details rather than the overarching point, and I think that's unfortunate.

Those details are often things that are a matter of preference. There are good
and bad arguments for both sides, and most of those arguments have been made
many, many times already. Different people will hear the same exact arguments,
draw on their own experiences and values, and come to different conclusions.
And that's okay.

Which isn't to say that details are always irrelevant: just that you're
missing a lot when you focus on the details to the exclusion of the larger
point. Like in this post: it doesn't really matter whether or not Giles is
baiting people intentionally. It may be true, it may be false, but _it's not
the point_. The point is that people are responding as if he's doing it
anyway.

~~~
alex_c
This is a common failing of... our kind, I suppose. Too often we tend to get
stuck on details and miss the bigger picture.

My favorite example are analogies. Every single time one is made, it results
in a string of other comments attempting to correct it or improve it. "It's
like driving a car down the freeway without any wheels"... "No, it's really
more like driving a tractor trailer on a country road without wheels and a
windshield". Every. Single. Time. And I'm as guilty of this as anyone.

It often makes for frustrating reading, especially when you're already
familiar with the argument and aware of the most common mental traps, but have
to read them over and over again trying to get to the good stuff.

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bediger
This article contains a good observation: _he wraps his key idea in layers of
link-bait and nerd-traps, shallow but emotionally charged ideas that side-
track all but the strongest minds_.

Hey, this idea is my Intellectual Property! I invented it to keep the morons
at bay during Usenet's Eternal September, beginning with AOL, Prodigy and
CompuServe's addition to Usenet in 1993. I always tried to put "lightning rod"
prose into any Usenet article to divert the idiots into responding with
idiocy. Only people with some knowledge can pass up a "lightning rod" and deal
with the real issues.

~~~
pavelludiq
In many of his usenet articles Eric Naggum admits to putting traps for 'stupid
people' in his posts. Anyone who's read any amount of Naggum rants knows this
had interesting results. For instance, people would 'suggest' he use more
polite language, and in response would get flamed.

~~~
technomancy
It's as old as Plato's Republic; it's hilarious how people (starting with
Socrates's fictional debate partners) get sidetracked into "no, if the city
were like that you would need [...] for it to work" while forgetting the fact
that it's just a metaphor for exploring justice.

~~~
iamgilesbowkett
Fun facts! I first read Plato before I was 16, and first read Plato in the
original Greek before I was 20. Those are the monkey see, monkey do years.

However, although I think Raganwald is basically onto something, it's not
entirely deliberate. It never occurred to me that after complaining how
Bundler breaks convention over configuration, people would tell me that
configuration options are the solution to "bundle exec foo."

This is the kind of thing Reg might refer to as a trap, but there's a simple
general principle that generates traps. Trace your idea from a specific to a
principle and watch how few people can follow you there.

Also, I've actually blogged that Alan Kay quote many times, and I try to
hammer the point whenever I have a chance, because I think it's one of those
overlooked bits of genius that really helps anyone who gives it the thought it
deserves. For instance: anything which is driven by fashion is going to go in
cycles. What does that mean?

Clothing of course is driven by fashion. Lots of fashion designers raid thrift
shops to get new ideas from old clothes. Fashion drives music. Bands re-record
new versions of old songs all the time, dance music constantly samples and
recycles itself, rappers sample old grooves and bring them back to new life
and put them in front of new audiences. So maybe if you work in an industry
driven by fashion, a pop culture, you'll want to dig into the past and find
"new" ideas to steal. Like the revolutionary idea that GUIs should use MVC,
for example. The big "new" idea in client-side JavaScript is literally the
oldest idea there is when it comes to UI.

I mentioned this in another thread, connected to my actual rant, but I'll say
it here again: I predicted JS MVC (eg Backbone) in 2005 or 2006, and built my
own crappy version in 2007 or 2008. It's not magic future genius powers. When
you know it's fashion, and you know fashion is cyclical, you can just watch
the wheel turning.

But I don't think the Alan Kay thing is the only thing in there worth thinking
about. I basically put in stuff for arguers to argue about and stuff for
thinkers to think about. Some people love arguing and hate thinking! That's
not my style, but I don't mind if they have fun too.

------
JonnieCache
It's always nice to see people keeping the fine art of old school usenet-style
trolling alive in these confused times.

------
MaysonL
Note to raganwald: Harlan is still alive, not suffering fools kindly, if at
all.

~~~
raganwald
“I used to smoke drugs. I still do, but I used to, also.”—Mitch Hedberg.

Yeah, I see how saying he “used to” makes it sound like he’s dead or had total
personality replacement surgery. I’ve changed that, thanks.

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telent
From my perspective Rails popularized (perhaps even normalized) tdd, which I
think is probably a significant contribution to programming culture.

Or were high-ceremony Java enterprise folk doing tdd all along and rails just
adopted it? I don't know but I suspect they were at best pretending to

~~~
bediger
_high-ceremony Java enterprise folk_ \- is that a way of not including a
"lightning rod" or layers of linkbait and trolling? Because I think of the
work of "Java enterprise folk" in different terms. "Bloatware", "boilerplate",
"marching morons" and a number of other more derogatory terms come to mind.

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pavel_lishin
Great, now every HN commenter is going to try to put a trap in all of their
comments. I wonder where the line between traps and trolling lies.

~~~
raganwald
There is no line, trapping _is_ trolling. The result as far as HN is concerned
is the same: High noise-to-signal ratio in the discussions.

~~~
lani
Ah. This clears things for me. I can now go back to some of the blogs I used
to read but stopped because I thought they were switching sides wantonly, when
they were actually forcing me to choose one...

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iamgilesbowkett
I know and respect Reg. I've emailed and tweeted quite a lot with him over the
years, long been a fan of his writing, and hung out in person in Toronto a few
times. He's a great guy. But this rambling theory of his highlights a problem
I've noted before, his tragic addiction to smoking banana peels. Although I
appreciate the time taken to think about my writing, Reg's "conspiracy theory"
amounts to nothing more than the fever dreams and hallucinations that smoking
banana peels so often induces. Parents, warn your children about banana peels.
I would go so far as to say don't even let them have a banana sunday or a
strawberry-banana smoothie. It's just not worth the heartbreak.

~~~
nsns
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananadine> ;)

