Ask HN: Pet Peeves? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Pet Peeves?

11 pointslukeqsee10 comments

We all have them -- sometimes legit and sometimes not --, and we usually like to talk about them.

Let's have a mutual sound-off. Why? So we can learn. Oftentimes a pet-peeve is really a legitimate concern (or even a breaking of rules or laws).

My pet peeves?

    1. Sloppily white-spaced code (First programming language was python.)
    2. It's vs its, (etc.)
    3. People who don't use turn-signals.

What are yours?

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People who complain about 'make' because it uses tabs as significant whitespace.

Especially if they are Python programmers.

Here's my fix (in .vimrc file):

    autocmd FileType make setlocal noexpandtab

This type of submission.

yep, doesn't belong here. (unless it was less generic)

As a technical writer:

Job listings that say "experience with FrameMaker/Madcap Flare/[whatever]". It's useless and arbitrary, and not unlike asking a programmer to have experience with Visual Studio or Eclipse. Technical writing--and writing in general--existed long before the age of computers, MS Office, and content management systems. I think it's done because HR doesn't really know how to filter these kinds of resumes.

(Not that it matters to me because I have experience with these tools, but it bothers me because it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what a technical writer is and does.)

This complaint does not apply to a statement like "experience with DITA and XML a must". To me this is like asking for experience with Python for a dev position, ie, meaningful.

----

As a hobbyist programmer:

1) Code that isn't properly whitespaced

2) Dbag comments in code (Last night's doozy was "With liberty and justice for all")

3) Dbag responses to questions that amount to little more than "RTFM". These are profoundly unhelpful and serve only to boost the ego of the person posting them. They are not meant to be helpful or instructive to the person who needs the help.

(I'm sorry to say that I'm guilty of having done all of these things in the past.)

People who cannot stay in their lanes. They should pay attention to the white stripped lines. That is your lane, buffoon.

I just posted a blog about one of my pet peeves here: http://www.minklinks.com/weblog/2010/11/15/solo-founders-and... (HN Discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1906770).

As a solo founder I find it slightly irritating when I'm obviously talking to an early stage one-man band that acts like it's IBM.

Referring to firearms as 'weapons' simply for the sake of sounding like a war movie.

Braces on the same lines as control statements.

Control statements without braces: that second line is coming someday, man. Make my oversight easier.

Indentation that doesn't match the rest of the project. I don't care if tabs are two spaces or twelve, so long as it's consistent.

The words "should", "ought", "duty", "moral" and "respect" and anyone who thinks that they have a valid argument because they have used them.

People who don't try.

People who think complaining is conversation.

1. People who cannot wait and honk even if they see that I am waiting for people to cross the crosswalk and not just blocking the intersection. For the record, I do NOT like to block the intersection. #MarylandUSADrivers

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