
“Considered Harmful” Essays Considered Harmful - 88e282102ae2e5b
http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html
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FreakyT
The thing that always bothered me about "Considered harmful" titles is that,
when you title _your own_ article that, you're just pompously referring to
yourself in the third person.

The reason they are in the passive voice is that the original "considered
harmful" essay was a letter to the editor, and therefore was titled not by the
author, but by the editor[1]. Therefore, to expand out the subject of the
sentence, the title was actually saying "Go To Statement Considered Harmful
[by Edsger Dijkstra]".

[1]:
[http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EW...](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EWD1308.html)

Further reading:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful)

~~~
lectrick
Glad to see this, as I was surprised that there was an entire post about the
harm that "considered harmful" essays caused without even citing the original
reference that started the whole hoopla, the very-opinionated, very-brilliant
and very-legendary Edsger Dijkstra.

~~~
jballanc
On the "very-opinionated" point, I'm particularly fond of Alan Kay's quote:

> I don't know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know
> that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.

~~~
tincholio
I've always found that quote to be particularly douchey. Then again, I do
think that Dijkstra's contributions to CS were more important than Kay's, too,
but I suspect that I might not be in the majority there...

~~~
innguest
Wikipedia's article on Dijkstra says:

"He was the first to make the claim that programming is so inherently complex
that (...)"

Meanwhile Alan Kay had 12 year old kids making computer games (videos on Web
Archive).

Dijkstra contributed algorithms. In that sense he contributed as a
mathematician. That doesn't diminish what he did. But it does not compare with
what Alan Kay did for the sum of these two parts: computers, and people.

~~~
lectrick
Kay : Dijkstra :: Ruby : Haskell

Dijkstra was correct in saying that you don't even need a computer to do
"Computer Science," all you need is a pencil, paper, and a mental model of
what you're trying to do given computer constraints.

Dijkstra more theoretical; Kay more hands-on.

I think BOTH are necessary, or at least important.

~~~
innguest
There is theoretical, and then there is theoretical: one is privately fueled
and produces real-world industry-strong gems like Haskell; the other is
publicly fueled and produces concepts such as self-stabilization and
superstabilization.

If Dijkstra is so awesome someone should write a Wikipedia article with more
important achievements and less medals.

~~~
tincholio
I don't really understand what you mean by privately or publicly-fueled
theory, but anyway...

Instead of waiting for someone to write on the wiki, you could go out there
and google a bit.

Very briefly: he made major contributions to compiler and OS design (including
the first Algol compiler and a whole OS, the THE OS), devised two fundamental
graph algorithms (shortest path and spanning tree), and spearheaded making
programming into a serious discipline rooted in maths (along the way pretty
much giving birth to structured programming).

He also wrote (longhand!) over a thousand essays on CS and related topics,
which are (as far as I've read, and I've read quite a few) all a joy to read.

You can start here:
[http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/dijkstra_1053701.cfm](http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/dijkstra_1053701.cfm)
and here:
[http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/)

------
peterkelly
I've always seen the inclusion "considered harmful" in a title as sort of a
comedic device, not to be taken as seriously as the author does. It's a signal
that "I'm about to say something opinionated; if you're easily offended, you
probably don't want to read this". The article itself is such an example.

I'd much rather read a forceful, strong argument that contains some
controversial claims than a piss-weak "perceived benefits and weaknesses of"
essay, as the author suggests. Sometimes treating a topic brutally can get
your point across more effectively. For example, some of James Mickens' more
colourful writing demonstrates this.

~~~
aoeuasdf1
So, tl;dr, you consider "'Considered Harmful' Essays Considered Harmful"
harmful?

:)

~~~
peterkelly
Almost to the extent of goto statements :)

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jessaustin
_For example, a piece titled "'Considered Harmful' Essays Considered Harmful"
would very likely be a case of using the "considered harmful" format to draw
attention for its own sake. We will ignore such essays in this commentary._

Now I'm just confused.

~~~
chris_wot
He ignored his own essay, so even the actual substance of the essay could be
considered an existential threat to the essay. I have to wonder though if he
ignored his own argument whilst in the process of writing his article, because
if he truly did so then it probably should have been a dissertation on
modalities which I'm sure we all could have readily ignored without doing
ourselves much harm. Thus defeating the point of the article, leading to a
resurgence of interest in Structuration.

Or to put it more simply: this essay is a plot by the intelligentsia to make
us reason like a madman.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
I literally can't read another word of this essay because of the logical
burden.

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JustSomeNobody
Indeed. I'm over these as well as any of the, "Why I quit X technology" or
similarly titled essays. Oh and the "Open letter to Big Corp". You're not that
important.

I don't really care why you quit using X. I don't need validation from some
blog about what technology to use or not use. I can evaluate X technology on
my own, thank you.

~~~
pidg
Let me reach out to you about why I left Gmail for FastMail. It's because if
you're not paying for the product... you ARE the product.

Yeah.

~~~
SixSigma
FastMail doesn't do free accounts for new signups any more, just 60 day
trials.

:)

~~~
serge2k
the points is referring to why gmail is free.

I considering switching back anyway. Fastmail search is just awful.

------
Thetawaves
I personally love the 'considered harmful' essays. They are usually used to
describe faults in popular technology that most people seem to be blind to.
They offer the reader a chance to move problems out of the unknown unknown.

Many times I find the points identified in the articles to be unfounded, and
those points are easily dismissed. But every once in a while there is a real
genuine problem.

I would rather dismiss 10 irrelevant points than miss the one show stopping
fault identified in the article.

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knieveltech
No. I'm getting pretty tired of the notion that the only valuable discourse is
pleasant, up-beat, and optimistic. This notion attempts to stifle entire
swaths of the emotional spectrum and has at it's heart censorship based on a
mainstream aversion to anything that smacks of confrontation or conflict. Up
with opinionated, confrontational speech.

~~~
techiferous
I disagree. If you look at what happens to the brain when it gets angry,
nuance is lost in favor of over-simplified black-and-white thinking. I do
agree with you that sharing conflicting points of view is good. Too much
passion, however, can cloud reason.

~~~
knieveltech
To clarify I'm not advocating for rage-filled screeds as a viable method of
communicating nuanced information, or even as a viable method of
communication. As you said sharing conflicting viewpoints is valuable. I take
issue with the suggestion that this is only valuable if the conflict is framed
in appealing language or "toned down" to "acceptable" levels, whatever those
are. Conflict is ok. Resolving it is how we get shit done.

------
leothekim
I would personally like to replace the words "considered harmful" with "is bad
news bears"[1], as usually that fits better with whatever it is that's.. well,
considered harmful. Come on, Hacker News! If we all focus, we can make this
happen!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_News_Bears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_News_Bears)

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smitherfield
I've always thought of "considered harmful" titles as a cute bit of nerd
humor, precisely because it's such a pompous and ridiculous-sounding phrase
that it's very hard to say with a straight face. I'd usually take it to mean
that the author doesn't take him or herself too seriously and knows that the
matter they're discussing is ultimately pretty trivial.

------
jrcii
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=considered%20harmful&type=stor...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=considered%20harmful&type=story&dateRange=all&sort=byPopularity)

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ak39
What a great piece of writing. This could do so well as a preface to my all
time favourite "programming" book: "The Pragmatic Programmer" written by Hunt
& Thomas.

Also, IMO, the worst of such "considered harmful" essays were those that
advised against the use of stored procedures and programmatic constructs
directly on relational databases in favour of the shiny new hive-mind created
ORMs.

The funny thing is, just as the best ORM technologies are beginning to sort
their shyte out, we are seeing essays that they are now considered harmful.
Reboot.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
I was just enjoying this essay when I double checked the title and wondered if
I could believe it anymore since it is also a considered harmful essay(?).

------
Thrymr
"They’ve become boring clichés. Nobody really wants to read “considered
harmful” essays any more, because we’ve seen them a thousand times before and
didn’t really learn anything from them, since we were too busy being annoyed
to really listen to the arguments presented."

It's a boring and pompous cliché. In 1968, it was original. Now, write your
own title.

~~~
hamburglar
My sentiment exactly. If I wrote this post, it would have been titled _"
Considered harmful" Essays Considered Boring_

------
ajkjk
You know, I think there might be a meta-analog to Godwin's law: that any meta-
argument about arguing on the Internet eventually contains a reference to
Godwin's law itself.

Since Hitler references are invariably followed by someone pointing out that
Godwin's prophecy has been fulfilled, this reduces to a simply corollary of
the law itself.

------
normloman
Everyone says we should write essays because it will get us noticed, make us
more employable, and sharpen our writing skills. But few of us have anything
important to say. So we get this glut of self important "considered harmful"
essays. And we're all guilty.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Everyone says we should write essays because it will get us noticed, make us
> more employable, and sharpen our writing skills. But few of us have anything
> important to say.

The advice needs to be updated slightly, then, to clarify the apparent
confusion: you _should_ , if you can, write essays for all those reasons, but
step one of writing an essay for those purposes is _find something meaningful
to say_.

~~~
vonmoltke
So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed and
hired?

~~~
dragonwriter
> So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed and
> hired?

...based on writing essays.

There are other ways to get noticed and hired. And, writing essays that reveal
that you have nothing meaningful to say probably _isn 't_ a valuable use of
time to get noticed and hired (if you are trying to get noticed and hired for
a tech job, taking the same time to increase your portfolio of open source
contributions you can point to is probably more valuable.)

~~~
vonmoltke
> > So only people with meaningful things to say or build should get noticed
> and hired?

> ...based on writing essays.

> There are other ways to get noticed and hired.

Whenever hiring discussions come up, the three ways put forward to "get
noticed" are personal blog, Github projects, and meetup attendance. None of
those avenues work unless you have something meaningful to say or build
outside of your day job. Having something meaningful to say or build in your
day job seems to be deprecated in this market, because liars.

------
pc2g4d
"Considered Harmful" is a cliche but not really harmful, unless you're the
author and want to be viewed as hip/cutting-edge/cool.

I'd say that driving "Considered Harmful" out of the conversation should be
considered harmful. The "considered harmful" titles are great because they
provide a very concise encapsulation of the contents of the essay. When I see
"X considered harmful" I immediately know that the work will be arguing
against X. I've read a number of these because I want to see what there is to
be said against things that I often take for granted, e.g. the utility of
Angular or whatever.

------
davesque
The grammatical construction "Blah Blah Considered Harmful" has always bugged
me...it doesn't seem proper. Shouldn't it be something like "Blah Blah _Should
Be_ Considered Harmful"?

~~~
acbart
Technically speaking, if anyone has ever said that Blah Blah is harmful, than
it has been considered harmful. The latter construction with Should Be is a
more polite form, but the former is also correct if it's ever been true once.

~~~
davesque
I know what you mean and I agree. I still think it sounds awkward.

------
CatsoCatsoCatso

        28 December 2002
    

Still relevant, unsurprisingly.

------
ninjakeyboard
lol META - was this post a retort to the "gitflow considered harmful" article?

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88e282102ae2e5b
Not understanding the hate for the title. It's just the author trying to be
ironic and clever. Not everything has to be taken literally.

------
thekevan
Every time I see one of these "considered harmful" essays, I immediately
assume the person writing it considers all their own opinions to be facts and
dissenting opinions to always be wrong.

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bevacqua
It's funny that I was thinking today about writing an article with this exact
same title. "Considered harmful" articles are just one person's opinion, most
of the time.

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mallamanis
So, is this essay also considered harmful by self-reference?

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Another possible title: How to Argue Against Yourself For Fun and Profit.

------
johnx123-up
Context
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9744059](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9744059)

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newobj
Yeah, burn this tired rhetorical device to the ground, along with the "open
letter".

------
gambogi
Thank you

