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Comment by kazinator | Hacker News Reader

What, there are arrogant people on the Internet? Say it isn't so!

The fact that some user of a functional language is arrogant has no bearing on whether you should use it for your project.

If you think that it does, then maybe you shouldn't be a programmer, for two logical reasons. One is that it is not logical to think that, and programmers have to think logically. The other reason is that for any stack of development tools, we can find someone who arrogantly advocates it, so if the existence of arrogant evangelists is a problem, you must necessarily be discouraged to use anything at all.

What car do you drive? If it's any good (and even if it isn't), there are owners of the same car who arrogantly believe that they are better than others. So, sell it: you don't want to be associated with them!

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We don't write software in a vaccum. When we come up against barriers of language understanding (and this is something EVERYONE will face), we seek help from the community to break through and eventually wield that language more effectively, and thus make better software with it.

The community you're joining will greatly affect how competent you become in their respective language, so anyone who partially bases their language choice on community is being completely logical.

This can be extrapolated to say "the community which uses a language should not have any bearings on your decision to use that language", which to me is crazy if only for pragmatic reasons -- a strong, welcoming community has tons of observably positive effects on my experience with a language (between docs, third-party libraries, SO/IRC presence, etc. etc.)

No, it can't be extrapolated that way, because the community which uses a language is more than just attitude (arrogant versus humble); the community has a productive aspect, like producing tools, libraries and such. Just the basic attribute of the size of that community could be significant.

Some languages with a welcoming community nevertheless have arrogant evangelists.

You can make your own language and use it; where is the welcoming community then? And what if you're arrogant? :)

As my karate instructor used to say "You become like the people you surround yourself with"

A few years back, I started using a framework based on the openness and friendliness of its community (the tech was good, of course). That lead to a job with the framework's publisher, which lead to travel, speaking engagements, a self-published book, friends and acquaintances around the globe, and my current job. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't use a language/framework if its community is arrogant. But, the benefits of finding the right community are well worth passing over the others.

So if a programming language, to you, is a gateway to travel, speaking engagements and friends around the globe, then of course community matters. You're not going to get any of that from something that has five users, no matter how nice they are.

"It's not logical" on its own is not a valid argument for anything. An actual argument shows why something is not logical.

"It is not logical" is an informal way of saying that a position is not logically valid or sound, such as the position that "My project will somehow not be successful if I use a language that has arrogant users".

No, just no. Saying that one shouldn't be a programmer because they won't choose a language/tool because they perceive the community as hostile or toxic is exactly the kind of arrogance the tweet was talking about.

It is entirely logical to consider the group of people that you're going to have to interact with on a regular basis to get help while you're starting, and decide you don't have the energy to deal with those assholes.

And while every group has some assholes, some have more than others.

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