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Comment by TIPSIO | Hacker News Reader

This is way above my pay grade.

Just don’t take anything personal. Being defensive / know best is in this industry everywhere at all levels and organizations.

Being humble in general is hard, being humble in code reviews is harder, being humble to Internet comments in any forum… sometimes impossible. Then repeat that with two super genius experts - eek.

You find everyone is usually trying their best if you ever have face to face (except server admins, they are stone-cold psychopaths, stay away).

Would bet you both are helpful and open minded at the end of the day.

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Oh yeah, for sure. I can't tell you how much I regret being that defensive about something that benign. This was certainly a life lesson. I've apologized to Casey in person before (well, to my best ability) and I'll apologize again if given the opportunity to do so.

I just wish people wouldn't say I'm taking credit, when it's an old, widely used idea and when I spent such an incredible amount of time reading and understanding DirectWrite/Direct2D's code in order to ship this renderer in the state it is.

Maybe you should post in that github thread pointing out to the people originally arguing with Casey that the solution is in fact trivial and that he was right all along. It sounds like you and he are both on the same side in this discussion.

It's not that you were taking credit, or that you were somehow wrong, it's that you initially put down Casey's idea so vehemently and so publicly. I think the lesson is, if you're going to step into the public arena, be humble, or be very, very right.

This is great advice (except the server admin part :-) !!)

It's sometimes tough to dissociate the problem with the people involved. Hope this will have a positive resolution as most of the people seem to be experts at what they do.

Most people are just performing the narrative that they use to shape their life in front of you (and the rest of the world). When someone comes at you overwhelmed with a disempowering emotion (e.g. locked up by anger, envy, snark, etc), how they behave has very little to do with who you are or what you did.

The first time this really hit home with me was when I was dating a girl who laughed at inappropriate times (e.g. it was extremely amusing to her how much my ski boots would squish my feet the first few days of the season). It was only after I broke up with her (for unrelated reasons) and saw her go through her own struggles that I learned that her family of origin was horrible and there was no one to comfort her when she would get hurt. Laughing was her way of dealing with the emotions of physical injury because she didn't know how to soothe herself or others.

Anyone who has the misfortune of having a friend or family member get ensnarled by the Qovid / Trump / populist zeitgeist can see that most of these people have gone through immense emotional suffering (often involving betrayal by a government agency, big business, or spouse), and are just bereft of the self awareness to understand what is going on with their emotions.

So yes, don't take anything personal. It almost never is.

>You find everyone is usually trying their best if you ever have face to face (except server admins, they are stone-cold psychopaths, stay away).

The server admin is a reflection of the union of the community of devs, maintainers, designers of their hardware, and users/benefactors of their boxen.

If your server admin is a psychopath. You may want to take a hard look what goes into keeping their boxen ticking along smoothly, and the demands of those using it.

Sometimes you get to be a peaceful, serene shepherd.

Sometimes, you're trying to keep that last critical link to reinforcements alive under siege from all threats, foreign and domestic, all at the same time.

Occupational hazard I guess.

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