Comments on: Professionals or People

By: Michael Kimsal

Michael Kimsal — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:11:43 +0000

Anyone caring to hear Mikeal’s vocal ramblings on this issue (less cogent than his post, but still interesting) can visit http://webdevgeekly.com to listen in.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 02 May 2009 02:17:04 +0000

Eh, I think you have this backwards. The issue isn’t that they have to include everyone. The issue is that they shouldn’t be offensive towards women. If you “intentionally exclude” people who love static typing, that’s fine. Excluding women, not fine.

By: MR KEWL FUNK

MR KEWL FUNK — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:27:07 +0000

Professionalism is more than wearing a suit and tie. The sophomoric attitude that ignoring the needs of others makes one an ‘individual’ only demonstrates one thing: that some people have not developed, as individuals, past the age of 16. Maybe next DHH can start urinating on the side-walk, since it would make him a more unique and special snowflake?

By: nossralf

nossralf — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:48:04 +0000

The good thing about the Rails leadership showing they're not interested in an inclusive community is that they will, sooner or later, starve themselves of talent and die. No, really. Just as a nurtured community such as Mozilla's will grow and sprout new, interesting things, a poorly managed one will not. And that's a good thing in the end. There's no downside if shoddily managed projects starve to death, regardless of the technical merit. Measuring success transcends just shipping code, either way you slice it.

As the commenter suggesting maturity means not liking dick jokes, wow. Just, wow. That's a scarily narrow way of viewing things. Maturity is mostly about recognizing situations and adapting to them. It's about taking responsibility for your actions. Louis CK tells dick jokes like there's no tomorrow, but reading his USO tour diary it's very difficult to argue he's not mature in how he thinks or acts.

By: Chas

Chas — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:46:10 +0000

It's not about professionalism or about people. It's about maturity.

The problem with the tech field in general and the Rails community in particular is that it is filled with stunted individuals who appear to believe that their programming skills relieve them of any responsibility to act maturely. Immature and even puerile behavior is not only rampant throughout the tech community (and many others, of course), it is often held up as a sort of badge of honor: proof that the bearer is a free individual.

This same emotional and psychological retardation is reflected in the high number of libertarians among the tech crowd. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that elevates the "rights of the individual" to the level of a fetish. DHH's "I'm an R Rated Person" reflects exactly this attitude, namely, the idea that he has some sort of right to do whatever he pleases, and that everyone else can go to hell if they don't like it. That this attitude is anti-social in the extreme should be obvious to everyone.

As for dick jokes, the question is not, When are they appropriate? The question is, Why would anyone find a dick joke funny in the first place? That which makes us laugh reveals our inner selves. Adults don't find dick jokes funny, they find them sad and pathetic. Children like jokes about dicks and farting and other body parts and functions with which they are uncomfortable because they are frightened of those things. Joking about uncomfortable things makes them less frightening.

The earth is a small place and there are a lot of us on it. Like it or not, the overgrown children who pride themselves on their anti-social behavior are going to have to grow up, or things will continue to get uglier and uglier.

We do not need a world of professionals, or even a world of "people." We need a world of adults, not overgrown children.