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Comment by theodpHN | Hacker News Reader

Jeremy Howard's "I Like Notebooks" JupyterCon 2020 Talk

Howard makes the case for why even "real" programmers should give notebook environments a chance. In addition to supporting literate programming ("code as literature") and exploratory programming ("code as scientific notebook") in a live coding environment, Howard explains how notebooks can improve documentation, learning and sharing, testing, and deployment. And add-ins and tools, like Howard's own nbdev, can help address what's missing in Jupyter Notebook. As an example, Howard notes how fastdoc even enabled him to write and publish "Deep Learning for Coders with Fastai and PyTorch: AI Applications Without a PhD using Jupyter Notebooks." Excellent, inspiring talk!

Jeremy Howard - Creating delightful libraries and books with nbdev and fastdoc | JupyterCon 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKt19-GsA1I

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This talk is especially noteworthy as Jeremy apparently got accused very harshly of breaking a code of conduct[0].

[0] https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/

Jeezus. What is wrong with people? If this woke nonsense is not stopped we are going to chase away all the people who actually create things and be left only with the evil mediocrities that enforce COCs.

From the article:

"I would rather not have to write this post at all. However I know that people will ask about why my talk isn’t available on the JupyterCon site, so I felt that I should explain exactly what happened. In particular, I was concerned that if only partial information became available, the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”). Finally, I found that being on the “other side” of a code of conduct issue gave me additional insights into the process, and that it’s important that I should share those insights to help the community in the future."

With this quote in mind, I highly recommend that you take a look at the rest of the piece, it may challenge some of your views on the topic :)

How about this quote: "The process has left me shattered" ?

In the context of the article, the author makes it VERY clear that they mean the specific process that they underwent. Is there another take I'm missing?

I think I would like to argue, that these processes have a significant tendency to create more harm than good. Since this is just one of many (e.g. the Drupal Conan Stuff) examples. Especially in combination with our current cancel culture, where an accusation is enough to get some fired from their job.

Ah I see, well in that case I can tell you that the author of that article disagrees with you. It's true that I don't share those same worries about cancel culture with you, my point is that this article is particularly weak evidence for your position.

I read this as the author realising that the mob that got him is still bloodthirsty, and must continue to be appeased lest they come for him again.

I did, and if anything I am even more certain COC's have degenerated into a plaything for narcissist, useless fools and we are better off throwing the whole thing out until we can figure out how to keep the psychopathic nannies away. This guy, who could not be more decent, was treated horribly. One shudders to think what would happen to less virtuous or politically correct people. I much rather keep hearing from brilliant, irreverent, even disagreable people, even if I risk a little offense now and then, then live a world pre-sanitized by these humorless, self righteous, sterile nullities.

There's a whole lot of ad hominem in this argument. Are you scared that the CoC crowd is going to take all the funny away? That seems unlikely to me.

Scared is not the word. I am outraged that the community I belong to is so cowardly that it has allowed itself to be stifled and bullied by people with nothing to offer but their self-awarded moral virtue, a situation that I feel should be denounced loudly and often.

We can quibble over words for sure, but you're certainly implying that if nothing is done, these folks will bully people into having a bad sense of humor. Like I said, that seems unlikely. Folks like being seen as funny, and will strive to be funny in front of people

I think we are looking at this very differently. For me the lack of humor is just a canary in the mine for authoritarianism and ideological mono-culture - the very opposite of the values that always attracted me in the tech scene. It seems you think the situation is not that dire and that these folks are doing more good than harm. I suspect the difference in our perspectives is greatly informed by our own political leanings.

> the evil mediocrities that enforce COCs

Most "people who actually create things" like communities with an explicit, reasonable code of conduct. This is of course not to say that mistakes haven't ever been made in enforcement, or that some COCs are poorly designed.

People under-appreciate the difficulty of building a community that people want to participate in. The problem is a close analogue to maintaining a desired company culture as it scales.

The reason all these communities have "woke" guidelines for behavior is because the ones that didn't have reasonable guidelines no longer exist, or have remained at a size where a COC isn't necessary.

Again, there's a fine line to be walked, so mistakes will sometimes be made, but if you think the "free for all" approach works, then you should try it. It won't scale once your community gets past a certain size. A few bad apples will spoil the barrel.

There are people who like communities with codes of conduct, and there are people who like to be the ones in the community enforcing codes of conduct. I prefer to live in a country with laws, but I don't fancy being a police officer enforcing the law. And, while plenty of good folks do want to enforce the rules with the purest of intentions, there's no question that, as with any role of power, some people will try to get the job because they specifically want to exert that power and derive great joy out of doing so.

I don't think many people are against the concept of a code of conduct itself - "hey, be nice to each other" is perfectly uncontroversial. It's when a few enforcers want to embroil themselves in a loud crusade against evil and stretch vague codes of conduct for their own gratification that we start to have controversy.

A case like this one where the rule broken was basically "you were mean" but the "victim" didn't actually care, didn't support the investigation, and wasn't even aware there was an investigation, and a full inquisition complete with intimidation and public punishment was brought out nonetheless is a perfect example of a situation where some spectators can't help but wonder if the committee is truly out to do good, or if some members are acting rather recklessly for their own enjoyment and parading around a false banner of justice to get their next high.

I don't think we disagree. I'm not pro-bad-enforcement, and I'm sure the phenomenon you point out does exist to some extent, just as we see in law enforcement.

The "the evil mediocrities that enforce COCs" comment that I replied to is low-effort and worse than useless. The "all cops are bastards" phrase has a similar level of subtlety and utility. Describing all conference organisers and community moderators as "evil" is nigh on absurd, and yet that comment has been upvoted, and my reply is on -3. That's evidence enough that my reply was needed - as Jeremy mentioned in his blog post, there's an irrational destroy-all-COCs meme going around lately.

What would cause such a meme, as you call it, to replicate in a community as progressive as tech? How do you distinguish what you seem to think is collective irrationality from justified and entirely rational rejection of an idea, that no matter how well intended originally, continues to prove itself symbolically good but practically evil?

The occasional viral instance of poor enforcement would do the trick.

I don't actually think there's a majority in the "COCs are evil" camp - not even close, but there's a very vocal minority group that has a lot of energy and is always ready to pile into a thread that is in any way tangentially related to COCs and post comments like "Moderators are evil right guys? Remember that time it was badly enforced? That means COCs are bad!" And they get upvoted for that. It's kind of amazing.

Argue about the rules in COCs, or about the way they're enforced. Commenting things like "the evil mediocrities that enforce COCs" is just cringe-level bad.

If you're interested in this talk, watch this one first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jiPeIFXb6U

This is the first talk I've considered listening at less than 1x speed.

Funnily enough, someone tells am after a minute he should "slow down and breath a little bit".

This is a great talk, thanks. There is so much potential in the idea of improving our artifacts. If you think about it it’s insane that we just use flat text for the most part.

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