Stop Calling People Morons


As I grow older, I am starting to realize the people who were idiots when you were younger are likely idiots later in life, just more set in their ways. These people are out there, learn how to deal with them.

That being said, I don’t go screaming you are a moron and what you are doing is insanely stupid. That is purely a reflection on me and how I choose to handle those situations.

Recently I have been seeing leaders in software communities regardless of being correct or not, basically blowing up on other software developers on the internet because of something *stupid* they have done or said.

REALLY?! Just because you were fortunate to work on something that is widely used and appreciated does that give you the right to openly belittle people’s efforts and work. Are they unaware of the effect their words have on others and the community as a whole?

That being said, you can simply say that you don’t care and continue doing whatever you want, but what about the rest of the community? Is that the example you want to send out as acceptable behaviour.

This is particularly hilarious, because people most famously know for this (Hi, Linus) are open source developers, where community and communication are key.

Here is another example with Douglas Crockford, as irritating that can be( put in your semicolons), is this what you want to put out there?

Also here is a word to the community stop sensationalizing things like this, Linus’s comment was on the front page of HackerNews for an entire day; talk about ridiculous. Scoffing at someone getting embarrassed by a leader in our field is hardly something to relish.

  1. Do good work.
  2. Treat people with respect.
  3. ???
  4. Win?

Mahdi Yusuf

engineer, speaker, writer, and home labber.