Comment by grandalf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grandalf | Hacker News Reader

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At the highest levels, in academia, business, and the arts, the sort of behavior Yehuda exhibited is completely acceptable.

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.

Just because he's the best programmer in the room doesn't excuse his horrible and unacceptable behavior. He this type of behavior goes unchallenged and is allowed to flourish, then many people will lose a voice. I think that would be tragic.

I think the solution is for people to feel comfortable defending their approach OR admitting they were wrong, and realizing that the goal for everyone is learning, not being right.

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.

If he felt so strongly about preventing others wasting time then wouldn't he have been better putting them forward in a diplomatic way that didn't embarrass the presenter (who was as a result likely to be defensive and therefore unlikely to learn) and alienate some members of the audience (and who now think he's a dick and are probably less likely to learn from him)?

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.

> the sort of behavior Yehuda exhibited is completely acceptable

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 present a false dichotomy. It's possible to correct without belittling. The truth and tact are not alternatives, they can co-exist with no problems.

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.

> value truth over the ego of some lesser being.

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.

You've set up a false dichotomy between "polite ignorance" and mean-spirited correction.

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.

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