Kennethreitz: A Letter to /r/python

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBQAKldqgZs

I've been using conda which has been incredibly helpful, but starting to learn pipenv and there's no question the Python community needs it or something very like it.

I recall a post on rachelbythebay.com about "The One"[1] that made me chuckle. These crap-raining commentators are akin to political pundits/talk radio hosts -- they complain, yell, excoriate and offer nothing else. Here's the thing, you may hate the library, that library may have a massive community who you feel is now writing bad code because of that library, it may be the library equivalent of The Antichrist, but don't crap on the developer. Most of the time it was a case of "He/she had a problem, solved that problem and shared his/her work". If you hate it or think any one of those prior things, write something better, offer up a patch, or at a bare minimum, advocate for a better alternative and do so in a respectful (and, preferably, thankful) tone[2] -- or don't, because you don't like it and your contribution of 'foo is garbage' isn't going to move anybody away from the product. Being a dick to a developer, especially attacking them personally, only serves the narcissist who's self-worth is strengthened by knocking someone else down.

There's a certain kind of entitlement mentality required by a person to think that a developer who release some thing, for free, with code and (often quite good) documentation on a platform that makes it easy for you to collaborate and evolve that product to somehow land on the idea that this developer now owes you something as a result of that kindness. I used to roll my eyes when I'd run into a very public mailing-list "I-quit" message, but I understand how that happens. At some point you just say "Who the f* do you think you are?" and, more importantly, why am I continuing to give away my time/work/effort only to get grief?

[0] It was on a post I didn't author that got under 10 votes and 5 or so comments, one of which was aggressively negative.

[1] https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/04/28/meta/

[2] "This 'foo' tool looks interesting -- I'd check it out but I'm really happy with how 'bar' solves the baz problem. I wonder, what is foo's approach for handling the painful zyzzx issue? My concern is that it may exacerbate that, or, minimally that it'll still be a problem that I have to solve in my code, as opposed to baz which abstracts that problem away for me. Am I misunderstanding that?" There's no need to stroke egos (or anything else); you can offer dissent, point out a concern, and not be a dick about it.