Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting
thewebivore.com
thewebivore.com
Here's what I recall happened:
1. Dude was making a presentation on meta programming.
2. Dude had his laptop plugged in and live coded.
3. Dude seemed to struggle a little.
4. Katz asked him "Why are you doing it this way? Shouldn't you ..."
5. Dude attempted to explain. Possibly tripped up by the question.
6. Group + Katz helped to debug his code and got it working.
7. Katz explained that his code was a common anti-pattern and why.
8. Katz plugged in his laptop and wrote the code on his machine.
9. Katz explained the difference between "extend" and "include" in a module.
10. David did another meta programming demo + counterpoint to Katz.
I don't remember "dude"'s name. It was my 3rd time there. Also, sorry I don't have the presentation. The gist is here that David rewrote and posted: https://gist.github.com/1893359
I personally think it's blown out of proportions because everyone there helped debug and got it working. #6.
Face-to-face is the right channel for this sort of pointed criticism. Failing that, email might work. To pass the lesson along to the larger community, leave the specific names out of it - talk about "a big name in the community" who behaved badly. People who were there will know who you're talking about, but it doesn't become part of the internet paper trail.
We can't be nice to people who aren't nice all the time.
Why not call someone out by name? This person seems that they'd have no problem doing so if it came to that. I'm honestly tired of the wise, polite people keeping their mouths shut because it's rude, while the rude people never stop being idiots.
That being said, it makes me uncomfortable that an article called "Why you shouldn't invite Yehuda Katz to your user group meeting" near the top of HN, especially because he seems to have become a bit of a punching bag lately (see Rails.app). I really wish we as a community spent less time dragging people down, especially ones who contribute so much great code.
This shouldn't be about Yehuda. This should be about all of us being nicer and better people. It's sad to see an opportunity for discussion be used to bring down one person.
One of the best things I've done was giving it a name thanks to Miguel's blog post. With a name, others can call me out for doing it ("did you just well-actually me?") and I can also call myself out ("sorry, that was a well-actually").
Let's be nice.
Maybe. Or, maybe like other engineers we care more about having things that work than your hurt feelings. In Inviting Disaster [1], Chiles talks about how the most successful engineering cultures don't cover up mistakes. They expose them and correct them at the earliest possible instance. This does sometimes require people to have a thick skin. It's not comfortable to realize that you're wrong. But, frankly, I'd much rather be correct than comfortable.
Of course, this doesn't mean that you should personally attack the person who's wrong. But, from the article, that's exactly what happened. Ms. Selle doesn't say that Mr. Katz personally attacked the presenter. She just said that he questioned the presenter's methods and approach. I think that's entirely valid. I see it at scientific conferences all the time.
I do agree that interrupting the presenter was uncalled for. Mr. Katz should have reserved his questions until the presenter was done speaking. But I don't think he was incorrect in asking the questions that he did.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Inviting-Disaster-Lessons-From-Technol...
EDIT: accidentally forgot link
What you're ignoring is that Katz could have timed his criticism better. Katz could have simply been polite and let the speaker finish the presentation and then do a point-by-point breakdown of what his issues were with the talk AFTER the presentation was done.
The audience in this case will still get the facts, so to speak.
I don't know what the motivation of the speaker was to give the talk, but usually these presentations are well intentioned. Sometimes people just pick a topic they don't know about, do some research and then present their findings, as a means of learning themselves. We don't know what the situation was here. In any case, just let them finish, and then correct them. Is that so hard?
The only reason I can find for the OP to explicitly call out Yehuda is so that maybe he'll actually read the article and consider the advice it contains. If the article's intent was to bring attention to this type of behavior, then mission accomplished.
I think the OP wishes she had taken a less passive approach to this when considering the sequence of events in retrospect. Sometimes, it's hard to be "in the moment", and only afterwards do you wish you said/did things differently.
Truthfully, I wish she had said something about this to Yehuda right at the meeting, but after it was all said and done and not in front of everyone. However, I don't know how he would have taken it. I could see the situation getting uglier at that point. Hopefully, he can/will learn from this for the future. No one is beyond criticism. We all have things we could be better at.
Even if the author was doing it to "make sure that he saw it so you could teach him a lesson", just saying "Last night at Philly.rb, a guy was giving a presentation on meta programming and he was rudely interrupted by another programmer. Lets talk about why this kind of behavior is bad" would have been enough. It would have been a good thing for all of us that have the same tendency to hear, and wycats could have seen it and said "oh, my bad, I can see how that wasn't very nice" without being called out infront of his peers.
I listen to the Javascript Jabber podcast. One talk was on Backbone. Jeremy Ashkenas was a guest, and I was really looking forward to listening to it. Yehuda was also on the call as a host.
Throughout the call Yehuda repeatedly interrupted and contradicted Jeremy. He would go off on tangents for several minutes, talking about his own work. The main host tried to re-direct the conversation but Yehuda was consistently interrupting. Apart from him not having good manners as a host, I felt like Yehuda really got in the way of my learning more about Backbone. He kind of ruined that podcast for me.
And I might not be alone. Ever since a few shows after that episode he hasn't returned to Javascript Jabber.
Sometimes people don't know how they're perceived until public reactions like these. I hope this helps him understand more about himself and how he affects others.
Generally, questions come in three classes: clarification ("I'm not sure I understand, can you explain..."), discussion ("Have you considered extending this to..."), and criticism ("I think there is a problem with this approach..."). In an academic setting, all are welcome unless otherwise stated. (Sometimes we say no discussion and critical questions because of time limitations.)
However, what is never acceptable is someone commandeering the presentation and using it to talk about their own thing. Moderators will step in if it starts devolving like that.
So, simply, you need to let your audience know what the format is, because had I been in your audience, I may have asked questions, too.
> Speaker: Talk talk talk talk. Talk talk talk? Demo demo demo.
> Katz: Wait, why are you doing it that way? You should be doing it this way.
[...]
Katz plugged in his own laptop, and proceeded to redo the demo.
That's not the behavior of someone who is curious. It's the behavior of someone who thinks they know better. Whether or not they actually do, the point of the article is to not attempt to show them up in front of everyone else.
"You should be doing it this way" is on the rude side of what is acceptable in academic circles. That is, people will think you're rude for phrasing it that way, but the content of what you said is legit. A more polite version is "Did you consider doing it this other way? If so, why did you choose your way?"
> "Was Katz right?" is not the most important part. It's arguably not even relevant. If someone is presenting, and they say something that's incorrect, there are better ways to deal with it than pushing them off the platform and announcing that the Real Genius has arrived.
We weren't at this meetup of course, but it very much sounds like that's what should have happened here and didn't.
I'd also point out to anyone thinking that being right is an excuse for this sort of behavior that people will remember you being an ass long after they've forgotten you being right.
Gist that someone else recaptured here: https://gist.github.com/1893359
no, you absolutely do not. the onus is absolutely on the speaker here.
1) It shows a real lack of class to call an individual out by name when you're talking about etiquette. Yes, I realize that the title of the article was meant to be attention grabbing--all the more reason to flag it.
2) There's very little context as to what the actual conversation was about. The implication is that there was really no reason for Yehuda (or anyone) to interrupt. But without the real context, I don't know if it was a person butting in trying to look intelligent or a person trying to avoid people at a user group listening to someone suggesting a dangerous technique that shouldn't be allowed to grow.
3) The premise "Let them speak in public; let them be wrong!" is absolutely faulty and the comparison to the Dale Carnegie story was a total straw man. There is a world of difference between correcting someone in polite, social conversation and correcting someone in the context of a presentation in which the attendees may be seeing the speaker as an authority or expert.
Now I wasn't there, so I'll neither condemn nor condone the way this was approached--but the article itself is little more than a smear against one person and I find it distasteful.
That said, this story doesn't have the right context, ignoring the actual talk and the actual arguments brought by Katz. Maybe the mistakes done by the speaker were too great to be ignored - and this is very unlike the Dale Carnegie story quoted in the article, because such presentations are attended by people that want to learn something.
I have been feeling embarrassed myself when other people corrected me in public and it feels awful, however it's a lot better to accept and acknowledge valid criticism and valid counter arguments and actually thank the person that stood up to you, because you know, you learned something new.
Unless, however, it is done this way. You are being basically made fun of in front of an audience. Instead of using constructive criticism and manners to show he had a better way to do things, Yehuda took the bully stance and made the speaker look bad - much worse than he should.
Still not appropriate behavior. Ideally, you bring up your point, have a brief discussion, and then, if you still feel the speaker is wrong, you take it offline. You don't have to pretend to agree with him or her -- you can say, "Well, I disagree, but let's talk more about it when you're done."
I'm all for speaking your mind in public, and standing up for an opinion, but timing is everything. Yehuda Katz has poor timing.
The user groups I've been to are very informal and relaxed. "The Podium" may have just been "the chair at a table next to the projector" and "redoing the demo" may have been borne from a group discussion where there was enough interest from everyone (possibly including the speaker) for Yehuda to plug in and demo his way. Yehuda is well known for his contributions, I can't imagine any group not being interested in what he had to say on the matter.
We don't know and we shouldn't judge based on this incredibly vague and incendiary post from a bystander. It would hold more merit if it was at least the original speaker complaining.
If he was at a local user group in the first place, then I'd say his timing was awesome, cause despite his obvious rockstar status in the community, he still spends time helping and creating at the base level, and he should be thanked for that.
I remember fondly a guy from Viacom talking about his CDN and how hard it is to maintain internal consistency and how they deploy and everyone was really engaged (it was an amazing presentation, even though he did it with just bash and firefox) and it devolved into this event organizer talking about his Solr install and the conversation basically ceased.
It can be really frustrating when someone is constantly 'that guy.'
However, go to #python and ask a question? You'll be treated like a total idiot by a bunch of mediocre programmers who think they're Guido himself.
Every community has its annoying parts, it all depends on the skill level.
That means that our internal bickering can be submitted to HN more easily. Stop upvoting it.
The only thing I took away is: don't waste energy reading this.
You don't want attendees, who don't know any better, to adopt really bad practices. For example, what if this was the context:
sql = "select * from users where id = #{params[:id]}"
This kind of thing really pisses me off because it serves as a basis for stereotypes. Most programmers know how to behave themselves in a social setting. But based on these few who really have no clue, stereotypes are born and thrive, and make things difficult for the rest of us.
If you respect the discipline/art/science enough, then you value truth over the ego of some lesser being.
People who dislike the conflict in these kinds of interactions are also inclined to dislike conflict on the editorial page, preferring instead bland "objective" writing.
The thing is, nothing is objective and the best way for the audience to view the truth is by observing the conflict and drawing its own conclusion.
And yeah, Yehuda is one of the best programmers most of us would ever sit in a room with... and thus he would find improvements to nearly anyone's code. To view this as a bad thing and to prefer polite ignorance doesn't seem like the best approach.
There may have also been benefits to the presenter's approach (maybe simplicity?) If you look at Yehuda's refactoring of Rails, there is tons of insight but also significantly more abstraction, which in some cases makes things less obvious. So the presenter should have been able to defend his/her approach at least on some basis.
Yehuda may have spent hours, months, or years coming up with the insights he shared, so of course he's going to feel strongly about wanting to prevent others from wasting the time the way he did.
Yehuda's approach if accurately described was as much about being right as about others learning. Confrontation is rarely a good teaching technique so I'm not clear why you justify his behaviour as in some way enhancing that goal.
Is it acceptable or is it tolerated? There are polite and impolitic ways of handling any situation where you need to explain why or how someone has erred. Expending the energy to do it in a way that doesn't make you seem like an asshole tends to be better because it makes people want to work with you.
Also, on a somewhat related note, I have personally found that the people who are rudest at providing criticism tend to be the ones most incapable of taking criticism, regardless of their capacity or skill in any subject matter.
You don't have to pick the truth or "the ego of some lesser being", they can be fine together with no problem at all. "Conflict" and the assessment of alternative views is entirely possible without one party giving another a kicking.
And "some lesser being"? For the love of God get over yourself.
This sounds better if you just say
> value truth over the ego
If the discussion is about someone being a lesser being, you're no longer talking about truth.
I don't think that the OP is suggesting that Yehuda shouldn't have corrected the presenter, but that he should have done it in polite way, i.e. "Have you considered doing it this way instead." People (like the presenter) are far more likely to respond positively and learn from someone who "teaches" rather than someone who ridicules that person for their stupidity.
That is what I was taught in grad school. It's rarely observed.
More specifically:
If the talk is informal and the speaker invites discussion, then by all means discuss. But only discuss things that are of general interest. Things that are of interest to a small number of people should be discussed offline.
If the talk is formal, then the only times to interrupt are if the slide is unclear or there is something that needs clarification, and is of general interest.
The general principle is to discuss things offline except in the face of strong evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, there are a few loud types who don't observe this principle, to everyone's detriment.
And it's great that he's really smart, but it isn't beneficial to the audience.
Great, let's publicly shame him for it!
It does make a good story though, and it's pretty good PR if you're trying to be infamous :)
You can be right and do nothing, you can be right and hear the person out before quietly suggesting some alternatives people might want to look at, you can be right and ask their permission to talk a little about the subject.
Sadly some people think that just being right gives you carte blanche but that's rarely true. I don't think anyone is objecting to the existence of discussion or correction here, more the form it took which, if the account is accurate (which it may not be), was right at the "rarely acceptable" end of the spectrum.
Was Katz right?
We need more context, and we need less emotional argument. If the original presenter could effectively support his position then he would not have left the stage. And I would hope that Katz would not commit such a social atrocity without a very, very good reason. I don't find it hard to believe that the actual story is much more tame and logical than the author of this article thinks it is.
I can think of two right off the top of my head:
1) Wait until they've finished, then pose your correction in the form of a question to them and allow them to answer. This lets them save face (since you're not outright correcting them, you're just asking for clarification), gives them the chance to correct themselves in case they just misspoke or were misunderstood, and avoids the risk of your correction of the one incorrect point overwhelming the other, presumably correct, points the speaker made.
2) When the session is over, approach the organizer of the user group and offer to make your own presentation on the subject, in which you'll give the correct information, at the next meeting. If you're concerned that people will miss the point, add a subtitle like "A Response to Presenter X" to the name of the presentation.
> If the original presenter could effectively support his position then he would not have left the stage.
In the world of actual human beings, this is not true. People are quite easily driven to the margins by bullies who are louder and more strident than they are, even if their argument is 100% correct. Lawyers even have a saying for it: "If the law is against you, bang on the facts. If the facts are against you, bang on the law. If both are against you, bang on the table."
I don't think so. They may not have been seasoned public speakers like Katz, so having someone outright argue with them during their presentation could have been especially unnerving.
Answering that question doesn't really get you very far.
Katz could have politely disagreed without taking over the presentation.
Katz could have taken the author aside afterwards and shared his perspective.
Katz could have offered to assist with a revised presentation.
There are all sorts of ways to politely and tactfully correct someone. Doing it in the manner described in the original article doesn't seem like the best approach.
Local users groups are good places to get decent critiques of your presentation before you take it on the road (bigger conference). The people are generally local and you've seen them before. Smart critiques are good for you and your code. I cannot imagine having audience participation banned at an user group.
The problem here is that and "outsider" came in and basically took apart a presenter brick-by-brick. From the writing of this one side, it seems like the presenter was trying to articulate a concept.
Even without knowing any of the context that prompted Yehuda to intervene so forcefully, there's a strong probability, based on his remarkably proficient community involvement, that he was making a good point. Would remaining quiet and letting the speaker present his code to a much larger audience at a conference be better?
What's more important? People feeling good about themselves, or people learning? Not that those options are mutually exclusive, but it makes no sense to sacrifice the latter for the sake of the former.
Maybe it could have been done with more tact, but I don't see it as heckling. You can attack someone's ideas without attacking the person. The less tied up you are to being right, the more open you are to criticism taking it personally, the more likely you are to learn something new.
The easy and proper thing to do for Katz is simply take notes and wait until the end of the presentation to make his counter points during the q/a session.
Interrupting someone in the middle of a presentation just makes it harder for the speaker to continue. The speaker is going to be more flustered and the flow and presentation will quickly degrade because he/she is going to be second guessing everything that he/she was going to say. For some speakers, one heckle turns them from an OK speaker to a bumbling mess.
It's also going to have a chilling effect on the user group. Who's going to want to volunteer to do a presentation after this?
This is like complaining that you were corrected by Feynman at your physics club meeting, no?
All that aside, I hate linkbait posts like this which could have started useful discussion about speaking etiquette but fail to do so because of being so unnecessarily personal. The author could easily have scrubbed Yehuda's name to make the same point without the mud slingling.
Some are good in their field, but not good enough for others to over look their fault. Some are so good, people will continue listen to them even if they are brunt and aggressive - they can tune it out or shrug it off. We've all made these choices before. The bar for tolerance shifts depends on the speaker/interrupter.
Personally, I think the HN title is weak and a low blow - from the article:
"But if he, or anyone, pulls that kind of shit, be better than me and stand up and say something."
So the author did nothing at the event, decides it's more productive to slander this person on the internet, then he's not making it hard for others to be better a person than he is.
He's getting some negative press these days, the success of his Kickstarter project seems to have pissed off a few people, heh.
I honestly think it's not about showing other people how smart you are, but that it's a desire to be correct. It's something that a few people do really struggle with. It has nothing to do with whether other people are around or not.
Some people need to correct mistakes. Other people need to ((close braces.)
[1] Interrupting other people with corrections.
on the other hand if the speaker does not understand a concept which he did not invent and misrepresents it to an audience expecting to learn, it justifies some sort of a response which is not private. if a speaker said 2 + 2 = 7, as an educator or evangelist, it would be irresponsible to let the audience assert this as truth and only report it in private afterwards, when hundreds of people have been mis-informed.
ultimately it's the responsibility of the event organizer and the speaker to ensure that blatantly wrong things are not "taught" and that the presentation is peer reviewed before being given without disclaimers of credibility etc...
i'm not excusing Yehuda's behavior, especially if it was for minor nits and/or involved a speaker's custom architecture rather than general concepts.