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Comment by dfee | Hacker News Reader

Was this a critique of the author or a critique of the book? It read as more the former than the latter.

It's a terrible critique. It contains way to little substance and too much ad hominem to be taken seriously. How could something like this reach the front page?

They're a little hard to separate. For better or worse, Bob Martin presents a strong persona.

OP here.

I was really disappointed by his posts in the last year, since he is a very important author and figure in my career.

Therefor I could not let this slide.

The question that still bothers me is: should I read material from people I think are showing unacceptable behavior?

I think you need to organize your thoughts before writing an article. The separation of creation from the creator is an interesting topic, but shouldn't be mixed up with a book review in my opinion. I'm also interested what unacceptable behaviour Bob showed, since I only know of his controversial opinions on software engineering.

Organize so I can split them up in two different posts? One about the book and one about the behavior?

It depends on what you want to tell. You can discuss how you agree/disagree with someone as polarizing as Uncle Bob in the context of the book, which, if I can go by his previous books, contains a lot of his personality. Or you write an objective critique of the book. Or maybe something entirely different.

When I read a post entitled "A critique of...", I expect an objective analysis of the information provided by the book, not jabs at the author. I hope this is helpful.

Thanks for that input!

I think this article could have been better organized, but I think it's fine that book reviewers talk about the authors when they think it material either to the content or to the purchase decision.

Here, I think the post makes clear why they talk about the author like this: some will have heard of Bob Martin for his political opinions, and could well wonder whether the book features them along with technical opinions. This would be a legitimate review topic no matter the political views.

Hacker News has a strong "focus on the tech, not the politics" contingent, so I'd think they'd be especially open to a book review that evaluates whether a technical book did what they were asking for.

Seeing as how it mostly dealt with the book, I'd say it was more the latter.

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