I readily admit I'm a hypocrite. But also note, I don't claim nor ever claimed to be a professional; I'm not. I'm not at the helm of projects that are useful to and used by many people. I haven't written books on the topic of computer science. Nor have I given talks or do I run a website that receives a large volume of traffic. Maybe that qualifies [him] as working in the domain of a professional, yes?
Although he may have achieved great things, this doesn't give him a license to troll HN and it doesn't excuse him of baseless personal attacks. The comments he made that I replied to were no less than that, at best. At worst, they were insight into his character. Certainly we can hope the latter is not true. Nonetheless, there's no place for that kind of bullshit; it's inexcusable, I don't care who you are. I made such a judgement because he clearly attacked the user "hp" who had done nothing more than make an observation about texts that introduce C in general. Zed's reaction was puerile, irrational, and even paranoid. I hope you aren't standing up for such behavior?