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Comment by jmcgough | Hacker News Reader

Tom Stuart gave a really good lightning talk about this a decade ago, which is very respectful and has aged well https://tomstu.art/the-dhh-problem

It's not just about his politics. DHH is reactionary, mean, dismissive of others' opinions. He acts more like a high school bully than a leader.

Since then, DHH has gone off the deep end with xenophobic, racist, and transphobic comments. I was drawn to the Ruby community because of its kindness and creativity, with people like why the lucky stiff and Jim Weirich. It is a lot less welcoming when DHH repeatedly uses his platform to say that I shouldn't exist or have equal rights.

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I got into Ruby and the community in 2006.

I aspired to be like Jim. We all should.

He made time for anyone who wanted to engage him in a sincere discussion. He helped a lot of newer people. He wrote beautiful tools that we still use.

He embodied MINASWAN. That has been the core of Ruby's community.

DHH has been pretty damn far from that.

Did many of us find Ruby through Rails? Sure. Does that mean that Ruby should be stewarded by someone who is intolerant and therefore exclusionary? No.

That's the opposite of MINASWAN.

> It is a lot less welcoming when DHH repeatedly uses his platform to say that I shouldn't exist or have equal rights.

Can you point to any of his blog posts that says this ?

Yeah, how about the one where he says Tommy Robinson was right? https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64

He is not stupid enough to say that directly bit it's one google away to find stuff like.

I follow him on Twitter and guy is a bully and has opinions about stuff he has 0 knowledge about.

https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-social-media-censorship-era-is...

How is his code?

I guess I’m so old that I remember not paying much attention to personal lives and looking at code contributions and collaboration behavior. I think that being a sensitive collaborator who builds changes was more relevant than swearing at people or saying rude things.

I once worked for a company where one developer hit another in the face with a keyboard. Was it wrong, yes of course. But we still delivered a pretty decent product.

I don’t really care if you, or others feel I should exist or not. Or whether they think I should or shouldn’t have rights, unless you mean permissions to change and maintain code.

> I don’t really care if you, or others feel I should exist or not. Or whether they think I should or shouldn’t have rights

Yes, but you don't really need to worry, because those things aren't a real threat to you. Imagine if you were a member of a minority group making up 1% of the population, with a government actively persecuting you.

Is DHH part of the government, one that is actively persecuting a minority? If not, then you're talking about someone who is not in power and not persecuting a minority (or anyone). How is that relevant?

Unfortunately, in the current political climate the stakes are much higher.

Supporting people that want to and are pushing for the government to kill you and your loved ones seems like such an odd thing for someone to do. Not even sure how to describe it.

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