This is like the textbook definition of an ad hominem.
But he is. Both in the title, and in later half of the blog post, he directly enters that discussion. I'm not saying an ad hominem argument is always bad, but this clearly is one.
No, it isn't at all. Ad hominem is only in effect and fallacious when the logic turns on the personal attack. "You're wrong because you're stupid" is ad hominem. "You're wrong and also you're stupid" is impolite, but logically fine.
To clarify, I think that the entire "History" section is unrelated to Andrew's argument, only the "Addressing the Blog Post" section actually contains arguments, and that section doesn't contain the rude comments, it's focused on technical decision-making.
Here it's a type of argument, and it's only sometimes a fallacy. Seems like this how it's defined most of the time, unless you explicitly look for "ad hominem fallacy". Ad hominem without any context can be vague, I guess, so I tried to be more explicit.
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, English isn't my first language, but I think "Obvious Fabrication" (capital letters) is a bit silly.
from your very link:
> ad hominem, type of argument or attack that appeals to prejudice or feelings or irrelevantly impugns another person’s character instead of addressing the facts or claims made by the latter.
> Ad hominem arguments are often taught to be a type of fallacy, an erroneous form of argumentation, although this is not necessarily the case. A number of scholars have noted that questioning a person’s character is a fallacy only insofar as the person’s character is not logically relevant to the debate.
You are right! The link does discuss cases where it's not a fallacy - in those cases, it is instead a valid argument. Again, not what you said.