To people that know him personally, like myself, Zed is a great guy. My guess at the problem is that his Internet persona took on its own life outside of his control, and it grew to such a bad situation that it was better to not try to feed the trolls and simply put some distance from it.
In other words, let the haters hate and be ignored, stand up for yourself when appropriate, and the good people will eventually acknowledge good deeds and fight for you.
His tweets are comedy gold though -- highly recommend everyone follow him -- @zedshaw
edit: case and point -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6806748
Unless it's his own, like all the FUD he spread a number of years ago about Debian.
Even beyond that, I guess I'm just not a fan of the "it's ok to swear and be harsh to people as long as you happen to be right" approach to life.
Look at how kind and helpful someone like patio11 is, without all the vitriol.
I love this video where he is debunking a lot of which is holy on HN - at BubbleConf 2012 "Peddling Luck": https://vimeo.com/53494258
At around 34:30 he admits he's an asshole in the context of slamming other people's work.
For him to jump all over the person above who called him a cock, well, all I can say is "pot-kettle-black, motherfucker".
"I'm busy helping people, you're busy calling me a cock".
Cry me a river. In the video he gets real busy rubbishing other people's work. Not to say he didn't have some very good, honest, refreshing points. But one needs to be able to take it if one dishes it out.
It's bloody hard to express something sincerely on the internet without sounding like you're just being sarcastic.
Of course, it also wouldn't have spawned a hundred-comment sub-thread.
Zed takes a lot of abuse for little reason.
I debated naming the companies here, but they appear to be failing anyway. Probably because they hired the sort of people who find harassment hilarious.
edit: removed oblique reference to one of the companies. I don't feel like giving those firms any publicity, even if it's bad publicity.
https://github.com/moron5/dongml
Apparently the twitter account referenced on moron5.com is still active and is passively still trying to be a dick
Edit: No, seriously, that "DongML" stuff is like something 4chan's technology board might aspire to, if they could put down their bongs and endless WM tweaking for five minutes in a row.
Notice the past tense. I based that opinion on the many aggressive attacking posts by Zed (for which he is well-known), particularly the attack of Mark Pilgrim (now deleted.)
That impression may be right or it may be wrong, but for good or for bad it's one that I got, and I felt my not mentioning that or hedging it here would be intellectually dishonest.
Note what I said next:-
"but this comment which is sincere, genuine and offered to someone for whom this could be greatly helpful has made me seriously reconsider. Kudos."
Which I really meant sincerely. It was actually meant to be a genuine compliment, but it is really hard to put that across without sounding sarcastic. Ah well.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070418001022/http://diveintomar...
I didn't see you calling Mark a cock after he wrote that. And, let's not forget that when Mark did take his gear off the internet I was sympathetic and told people to not "kick a man when he's down", something I'm damn sure he wouldn't do for me.
So if you're bringing out Mark Pilgrim as your shining example of people I "bullied" you pretty much picked about the worst example ever. Mark was a dick who shit on quite a few people in his day and deserved a little bit in return. Thinking that he was some choirboy that I beat up is a very naive way to view the world, but that's what I expect from someone who builds up mythical opinions of people they've never met.
Anyway, closing this tab now. I've sent out about 60 emails helping people find work and will be looking at about 10 resumes tomorrow in the time it took you to write these little comments. You rock dude!
I got the impression you were being bullying - my whole point here is that I felt I was wrong, and your kindness made me reconsider.
My little comments (indeed they are little, I make no claims otherwise) were actually genuinely and seriously meant to be complimentary while being open and direct about the impression I had.
Actually, please do ignore me and carry on helping people. These kind of arguments are a waste of time, what you're doing to help these people isn't. I admire it.
"Fuck that book...fuck that bad advice, those people are lying... he/she is full of shit" etc etc. That was my first introduction to the Zed, just 5 min ago.
Then, singular comes along and says "I once thought you were a cock, but not anymore, kudos", and that gets a rage-reply from the Joker? Well, that's funny. People are hilarious!
Just because you now have a positive judgement doesn't change the fact that a few hours ago you judged him to be 'a cock'.
Why shouldn't he be pissed about that, and why should he care what you think?
I prefer the former to the latter. Sweeten me up then crush me with reality. A lot of people see the latter and just absolutely stop reading after "You're fucking stupid", especially people with admittedly short attention spans.
That would be the only thing I would apologize for or alter, personally. I understood the sincerity immediately but this is because I come from a long line of men that have taken the latter approach and I have to willfully ignore the negative because I know some positive exists or they wouldn't bother saying a damned word.
One day, when he is an adult, he will look back on that and really cringe.
He's a hoot! Funny, insightful, earnestly well-intentioned and full of ideas that are IMHO way ahead of the curve.
Him reaching out to help is not surprising.
Wait, actually I don't give a fuck what you think. I'm busy helping people while you're busy calling me a cock. Fuck you.
I felt you'd appreciate an unhedged opinion rather than me adding a bunch of weasel words like "I had the impression, right or wrong, that you were a bullying cock..."
I meant to say, very sincerely, that I was moved by your offer of help and it very much made me reconsider my opinion, as that gesture of kindness is really at odds with that impression of you.
So - sorry for calling you a cock. I thought what you did here was very noble and I admire it. I just felt there was no other way of expressing what I felt without being cowardly and weasel-worded about it.
Every interaction with someone carries the chance of impact, the closer you get to talking about things related to or stemming from their core values the higher the chance you'll provoke a strong reaction (positive or negative). If you're not willing to potentially (perhaps not intentionally) express a viewpoint that could hurt the other person, then you'll be forever only talking about unimportant gumf or giving half-stated opinions that might not get the gravitas of a situation across.
Looking someone dead in the eye and without ego telling them "You're fucking up right now. Here's why" is a loving thing to do, and I'm thankful that someone cared enough to "hurt me"
Hurting is optional for learning. And personally I think it's entirely disposable.
Second point: Yup, optional just like most tools, and just like most tools there's always a set specific challenges where it can work wonders compared to the rest of the shed.
Your mileage may vary but I'd be very surprised if you can't think of a single lesson you've remembered better because there was some pain involved, we're supposedly hardwired to better remember those lessons, for obvious life-prolonging reasons.
Pain keeps you from touching that oven or from jumping down your balcony, but it's not a suitable tool to drive home a lesson. It holds us back. If you add painful lesson after lesson on top of your "fixed constraints" stack, then you won't be able to freely move after a while.
So you burn yourself taking a casserole out, do you stop cooking? I'd hope not, you just now have the good sense to pay attention when dealing with hot, dangerous objects. We cherish this feedback, both as people and as entrepreneurs, that's one of the reasons we build MVPs
We could go a bit abstract and talk about pain/discomfort (including emotional) as devices, and I could give you anecdotes of when a former boss took me aside and plainly laid out why I could never hope to get where I wanted if I followed my current vector, but as we're anecdueling where's the fun in that :p
Talk to any gymnast and they'll usually be able to tell, if not show you physical remnants of, all the painful lessons they've learnt along the path of self-improvement. Ask them if they'd be half as good if they hadn't made those painful mistakes. Better yet ask them what makes an awesome gymnast, they'll usually tell you it's more about having "no fear" when going for stuff. Of course that's an oversimplification and discounts the years of training and talent, but there's a realist perspective in there.
Yes there will be painful lessons along the way, such is life. Not to go all ad populum on you but it's a fairly standard cliche that the people who can take the experiences, learn from the setbacks and not let the fear of another fall stop them trying will learn an awful lot faster and deeper than if they shy away from anything potentially upsetting. That fear of being upset by something is a personal issue and may limit what someone can achieve.
If a man helps another man, which I consider normal and I thought everyone would, you are "moved" when someone is nice. On the other hand it's a scandal if someone seems unfriendly, even though their actions are kind.
Stop please. And as parent wrote, nobody really cares that you changed your opinion. Opinions are nothing, you know. Actions on the other hand really count.
I know this is just a plea of yours, not an order, but it still comes across as patronizing to me. If you hate going all happy family on someone, don't do it. It will achieve nothing but aggravate them.
Saying fuck normally should be used to create rapport with someone and allowing him to use the word too.
Welp, quite some deep psycho analysis shit here.^^
I can remember the old days when there wouldn't be a week without Zedshaw this and Zedshaw that on HN.
And the very fact I love you is your pure, raw, passionate ethics.
I like you because you do not just ignore dumbasses. You give them a chance to see gravity of their delusion and to repent. If that means taking a dude and rubbing his nose into the poo, then be it.
Zedshaw is like an amplifying mirror. Be nice to him and he will reflect and amplify the niceness. Take him for a fool... Brace down for some Righteous Fury (tm).
Thank you for your honesty. Whether you care or not, know that the people that value it -truly- do (unlike the cooze that reacted on you).
Also, thank you for your amazing coding lessons. Your CLI book/guide is largely responsible for helping me land my current job. I have ADHD:PI and find your "cut through the bullshit" method of teaching INCREDIBLE. I've purchased your Python book and look forward to the experience.
Bullshit.
I assure you that I am very little like Zed -- apart from my fear and opaqueness, I also appreciate the mean as an excellent first-order summary statistic -- and yet I am very sincere in my belief that your response is pure vacuity.
As for the mean as a first-order statistic, we clearly have different values... I like mine better.
Cheers!
Even with all the people shitting on your online persona, you continue to work, you've produce some stuff that people enjoy (learn the hard way), it's really admirable.
You so don’t give a fuck that you replied straight away.
But at least you didn’t have to repeat how busy you are helping people, since the poster you so-don’t-care-about-that you-had-to-reply-to specifically called it out as noble, amirite?
Whether the post was ment ironic or not: golfclap
Can we all please rise above talking about personalities? How fucking drab.