It’s also very likely to be hypocritical: how many topics on HN are tuned towards a very specific kind of focus/nerdom? And what’s the point of commenting “aha, good for me that I don’t care aboutt this!…?

I guess the difference here is that someone’s boss might complain that they should follow this article, since we all write stuff from time to time.

Agreed it’s very HN. But it’s not just bad. Hackers are usually hard-wired to reduce entropy—we’re quick to point out when something is redundant or unnecessarily ambiguous. Formalia is also used for gatekeeping, which the HN Zeitgeist doesn’t like.

That said, personally I need my different dashes, commas and parentheses for my excessive wavering.

And to the one expressing that thought, you're right. To them, it's not important, and dumb.

You could argue, however, that they should refrain from posting, but they probably felt the need to share in case others felt the same way.