

Make Love, Not Flamewars - swah
http://bitquabit.com/post/make-love-not-flamewars/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bitquabit+%28bitquabit%29

======
ivanbernat
It's because we [developers] are highly opinionated people and [most of us]
love to be "right". Some people have a hard time understanding other people
might not think the same - and in cases when they don't know how to express
their feelings - you get name calling.

~~~
hello_moto
General truth right there sir.

Maybe there is a correlation between developers and math? Since I'm guessing
many developers might have a CS background that involves a lot of Math,
Statistics, Physics, and of course Programming. These subjects require people
to answer things correctly hence subconsciously create a habit of being
"right".

~~~
zbyszek
You are probably right, and it's odd because if I've learnt anything from my
time in science research, it's that science isn't like your school homework or
undergraduate exams where there is a right answer. I find the notion that
there is some absolute Truth which science expounds not to be useful. A useful
thing is to be less wrong and to have a good handle for all the ways in which
one might be through assumptions, approximations, systematic uncertainties and
so on. The wider relevance of all this is the recognition that technical
decisions involve some sort of trade-off and are not necessarily the end of
the story. In science it's a healthy thing to have different approaches or
formalisms because it gives some confidence in the results if they agree. I
don't know if that has any wider relevance.

------
dkarl
_I have a solution.

Instead of talking about why you are better than the other guy, let’s focus
purely on why your system of choice rocks. That’s it._

Nice diagnosis; useless solution. Tool quality is relative. Fast, easy, safe,
these are relative terms. Take me back to 1995, and CVS would be my best
friend. Repositories rarely get corrupted, and when they do, they're easy to
fix! For 1995 values of "rarely" and "easy", at least. Standards are different
now because better competitors have emerged.

------
Joakal
I like to think that promoting what you currently use gains more traction for
what you use in terms of; community, documentation, features, demand, etc.

Applies to all languages and software.

But yeah, the immaturity with using fallacies (especially ad hominem) to argue
puts me off and it doesn't help with the general community votes for it.

Some links for those who wish to know how to debate like an intellectual:

<http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html>

<http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy>

------
krosaen
relevant: how to disagree:

""" After he has said, "I understand but I disagree," he can make the
following remarks to the author: (1) "You are uninformed"; (2) "You Are
misinformed"; (3) "You are illogical - your reasoning is not cogent"; (4)
"Your analysis is incomplete." """

[http://books.google.com/books?id=Z5PpkQadm5EC&lpg=PA154&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=Z5PpkQadm5EC&lpg=PA154&vq=disagree&pg=PA156#v=onepage&q=i%20understand%20but%20i%20disagree&f=false)

With this in mind, I think saying "I love mercurial" without at least
referencing git, the more popular DCVS, will be less convincing since anyone
can say, "Your analysis is incomplete - haven't you tried the most popular
DCVS?"

~~~
mmatants
I agree: the issue with "I love X" as a pure statement is that it has nothing
to do with why we argue on the Internet.

Debating a topic is supposed to enrich us on that subject. I have changed my
opinion on things before, based on Slashdot comments (this was way back), and
now based on HN comments.

Of course, there is also the need to portray ourselves as clever. That's the
real driver for flamewars: sophistry.

But saying "I love X" does nothing for either cause. People interested in
rational decision-making are not engaged; trolls are not discouraged; and
newbies are not educated on how to argue better.

(edit: fixed a run-on sentence)

------
sitkack
I am utterly offended, DOS is awesome. Esp for embedded devices where the OS
and the application are the same thing. Less complexity leads to more
stability.

Flame wars are the most virulent when the enemy is extremely close to your
position but doesn't take it. Emacs and VIM, essentially the same. Mercurial
and GIT, again, the same. If the differences are too far apart the whole
argument becomes, meh.

meh.

~~~
gecko
Fair enough, so let me remind anyone who wants a very thin OS for embedded x86
applications that FreeDOS (<http://www.freedos.org/>) is a great DOS for the
purpose.

~~~
sitkack
Although I haven't used it, there is a version of Python for DOS,
<http://www.caddit.net/pythond/downloads.php> but Lua might be a better
choice.

------
sebastianconcpt
Relevant, focus on the positive outcome instead of a stupid futile private
little war that only distracts people from doing great work with whichever
freaking tool they needed to use in order to achieve it.

------
thyrsus
Apparently there are many good arguments for Mercurial, and many bad arguments
for mercurial. The author says:

"These questions matter. And they’ve been answered, very eloquently, many
times."

I've used CVS, svn, bzr, and git - I'm still a newbie on those last two and
therefore persuadable - so where do I read these Hg answers? Seriously, I'm
not doubting that they exist, but I'm getting the impression that google
results will be polluted, and I'm not sure even the most beatific tweet stream
is going to pull me in; but I will peruse the tweet recommended
<http://hginit.com/>

Seriously, where are the issues carefully explained and addressed?

------
krosaen
Well, saying "I love mercurial" without some mention of why you aren't using
git, which is more popular, will seem like an incomplete argument. Not using
what most others are using has drawbacks, so some justification is needed. But
it is true that spending too much time promoting something in terms of its
competition can weaken the argument. A tough road for the underdog; try
explaining why you are excited about android tablets without mentioning the
ipad 2 :)

FWIW I love hg and android.

~~~
hvs
_Not using what most others are using has drawbacks, so some justification is
needed._

This is only true in the open source world and then only in one corner of it.
Subversion is still, by far, the most used version control system in the
enterprise.

And why should someone have to argue why they _aren't_ using git? If he loves
Mercurial, great! He doesn't have to explain why he doesn't use _every other_
version control system in existence.

~~~
krosaen
Good question. I think git is so relevant to the mercurial argument since it
is distributed, so if you are saying why you love mercurial, at least
acknowledging git will strengthen your argument, as it is the most popular
DCVS. Without that mention, readers might falsely think you are uninformed and
haven't heard of or tried git.

------
Confusion
That won't make a lick of difference. Any statement of the form 'X is great,
because ...' or 'I like X, because ...' will be interpreted by a bunch of
people as 'He means Y, which I love, is not great and is lesser than X.
Otherwise, he would be using Y. He must obviously think it sucks, which shows
what an idiot he is'. And the stage is set.

People can't help themselves. They want to defend their choices, even when
their choices aren't under scrutiny. They will follow up with a fallacy or two
and they start arguing from positions that are so ludicrous that even with the
best initial intentions you forget to point out the fallacies they must
obviously have committed to arrive at their starting point and just start
refuting them. That way, they suck you in.

Only if there are sufficiently many people in a community resistant to this
kind of trolling, pointing it out to each other and refraining from feeding
the trolls, only then can sensible discussion come about. But it's hard not to
get sucked in. It reminds me of David Foster Wallace's speech about being
aware of the water that you are in: it's hard work and requires an amount of
self-awareness that can be exhausting.

~~~
raganwald
_That won't make a lick of difference. Any statement of the form 'X is great,
because ...' or 'I like X, because ...' will be interpreted by a bunch of
people as 'He means Y, which I love, is not great and is lesser than X.
Otherwise, he would be using Y. He must obviously think it sucks, which shows
what an idiot he is'. And the stage is set._

Nobody forces you to pander to these people's neuroses. _You are not the troll
whisperer_. This over here is my favourite interview question. That over there
is my favourite line of Ruby code. This is my favourite book. I wrote blog
posts about all of these subjects and attracted exactly the responses you
describe. But I was happiest when I ignored the people who had an agenda of
arguing about their favourite interview question or their favoruite line of
code or their favourite book.

Nobody compels you to play their game. So don't.

~~~
Troll_Whisperer
By choosing a favorite, you cannot help but choose an infinitude of not-
favorites. With a high-traffic blog such as yours, it's near certain that some
people will believe you've shown yourself to be an idiot by missing a superior
choice. Neuroses may be at work in some cases, but it's arrogant to assume
that all who disagree with you are neurotic.

~~~
raganwald
Choosing to believe something about what I believe based on my expressing my
like for something is not neurotic. ASking me to explain myself or seeking
further information about my choices is certainly not neurotic. Choosing to
believe I'm an idiot because you like something else and because I didn't
attempt to intellectually bludgeon you into agreeing with me is _____, but
it's not neurotic.

But someone getting so invested in what they think that a stranger believes,
such that they have to start a flame war? And expecting that I have some sort
of obligation to their egocentricity such that I _must_ respond to their
questions?

Well, I'm not a psychologist, so the odds are strongly against this being
clinically neurotic. But it isn't for me, and I don't feel a compulsion to
play along.

p.s. Again, this isn't about people's right to believe what they want to
believe. I'm ok with people believing I'm an idiot. They may be right! But
what I'm talking about is whether I have to respond. I don't. I also don't
have to worry about it when I write such that I try to deflect criticism or
protect my reputation.

