simonrobb

Sure, but I don't think the existence of this lib implies the author disputes that, and I can only imagine they're pretty familiar with regex themselves. I think they're trying to fill a legitimate need in frontend dev, which is: if you're only touching regex a few times a year, it's pretty intimidating, and not at all maintainable. SQL can also be difficult to grok if you don't write it often, and ORM interfaces make it easier.

Would the world be a better place if everybody knew regex perfectly? Yeah ok it would, but investing a bunch of time learning something you will only occasionally use is a poor investment IMO.

> If you don't, then go back to designing* I guess, and ask for a programmers' help

This seems to be needlessly condescending? You can be an excellent programmer (particularly in frontend) for years while avoiding regex. It's not a make-or-break thing.

You're probably right Galileo didn't have a platform, but you're the one drawing that comparison, not me. Do you really think he has the same problem, in the age of the Internet? In another comment below I've suggested other, more respectful, platforms: "Blogs/journals/conferences not specifically for supporting women/editorials/radio shows/record a podcast. Write a manifesto for crying out loud."

I was very outspoken in the wake of James Damore being fired from Google, because I think there was a reasonable narrative in there somewhere, even though some of the science was flawed. I still don't think firing the guy was the right response. To my mind his ideas were respectfully presented and weren't phrased in absolutes. There could have been a great conversation around gender in Google as a result.

But this is different to that. This is somebody writing off a large group's experience, supported by poor science, in an area he knows nothing about, at a conference for the express purpose of supporting women. I don't want to shut down conversation, but I sure want to condemn people who can't be respectful of others.

But honestly I wouldn't have so much of a problem if he presented the same thing anywhere other than a conference for encouraging women into science. If I were any one of those women, I would have walked away discouraged and hurt.

But I think the question you're asking is: am I critical of him because it's fashionable today to push feminism with blinkers on? And would I still do so in 50 years, if today he sparked a mens' rights revolution?

Let's not assign this guy mythical status preemptively. There have always been loud points of view; some of them haven't held up with time, others have. We usually forget the ones that haven't, unless they managed to really hurt people along the way. To put it another way, just because you take a loud contrary position on a political or social issue, doesn't mean you're right.

I actually do applaud him for standing up for something, but my admiration only goes that far. You can present your point of view while trying to minimize the collateral damage. You can also be aware of your own fallibility.

If Galileo burst into Catholic prayer to proclaim the church was wrong and he was right, yeah, I'd call him a bit of a dick. What does he hope to achieve, by choosing the forum that is most disrespectful of others?

I was once passed over for a job, and I somewhat knew the female candidate who got it. We were equally qualified, and I may have been slightly more experienced. I think it's likely that was preferential treatment (I could be wrong, maybe they just liked her more, maybe it was arbitrary). I think that's awesome. I most definitely wouldn't call it a free pass.

Presenting data and drawing conclusions is fine. You just don't have to be a dick about it.

It's not "blantantly idiotic"! I often think the way affirmative action is implemented is flawed, but at least it takes into account the momentum of the problem and tries to do something about it. It takes a long-term view of how equality might be achieved by propelling those up who wouldn't make it otherwise, to disrupt the infinite loop. In the short term those who are used to privilege find it a little harder (boo-hoo, you've tasted a little a tiny slice of what the other side has had... for centuries). It's for the long-term achievement of what you ostensibly support.

> given free passes into the field based on gender

Free passes aren't given based on gender, though preferential treatment might be given as part of an affirmative action program. Personally I think that is absolutely necessary, in all of STEM, because I believe there is a structural imbalance in our society against women. I'm open to the idea there isn't, and there are immutable biological differences at play, but unless we do something meaningful to correct the societal factor we'll never know. But it's super easy to say there's no chance of that and we should treat everybody totally equal, when you're not the one with the disadvantage.

As to his arguments, so much of the evidence he points to can be shaped by the same societal forces he is trying to dismiss. "I made some simple checks and discovered that it wasn't, that it was becoming sexist against men and said so." Anybody who thinks they can unravel this in a evening on google is arrogant, and totally wrong.

> speaking some truth

Real scientists don't talk in terms of absolute truth, they deal in scientific consensus given the available evidence. Please consider being less dismissive, when almost 50% (and in some ways, 100%) of the world's population is affected by how we view and respond to gender.

You might disagree, but it's not irrational at all. To follow your argument, if everything is chemicals - is it rational to presume everything is safe? Of course not, there are plenty of dangerous things in the world. Of course the -phobia demarks a fear as irrational, but this isn't "chemophobia".

> ~~~It’s not.~~~ Glyphosate is a herbicide: if you spray it on plants, those plants die. That is in fact its purpose.

It's also worth noting that while it's a herbicide, of course it's only effective as a herbicide at a certain concentration. Consider that <agricultural conglomerate X> intends to spray the weeds right next to the lettuce, not the lettuce itself, so they can make $$$ from that still-alive lettuce at market. It's still going to be exposed to a small amount of herbicide, just not in a "lethal" dose. Is it absorbed into the lettuce/does it make it to the consumer? I don't know. If it did, would it be harmful at that dose? Probably not, but I don't know. Does it accumulate in the body over time, to an eventual harmful dose? Don't know. But those questions all demonstrate that it's not simply an irrational fear; there is a good number of questions to answer to go from "this could be unsafe" to "this is definitely safe".

I don't have any views on Glyphosate at all, I know next to nothing about it. Just objecting to your first two points.

I was referring to Uber/Lyft pools in that paragraph: "Share a car to work with some of your colleagues, who happen to live near you, sure." Agreed, ride sharing is a much misused term.

I can't give an informed opinion on just how profitable driving for Uber/Lyft is right now. Everything I've read on the subject has been (potentially) biased, devoid of real data, or since shown to be incorrect. I'd love to read studies on this if there are some available. I do think the best solution is to make as much data on profitability available to drivers, so the market can correct itself if necessary, like you suggest.

However I don't think the ride hailing companies are blind to the economics of their markets. If there is a problem with the economics, that's an existential risk and they're not going to be sitting on their hands. If we're comparing ride-hailing with traditional car services, it's the ride-hailing side which have a whole lot of knobs they can twiddle to make the market work, and they're adding more all the time (e.g.: Uber/Lyft Pool can go a long way toward mitigating driver "opex" - minimizing those empty seats, like any efficient transport operator.)

I just don't think the efficiency of centralized maintenance is really that big a deal. Even if we ignore all the other factors at play, if that's the make-or-break feature Uber could easily provide centralized mechanical support for their fleet. They already have driver centers in each city they operate in.

The introduction of low-cost options for Uber/Lyft were arguably as important a development as their original ride-hailing app ideas. Once the fleet was no longer constrained to professional drivers, and anybody with a spare hour or two (and a car) could go online, the size of the fleet exploded. That meant the likelihood of having a car near you - no matter where you are in a city - dramatically increased. Sure, call your local car service from home when you're heading to JFK and he'll be there in 10. How about when you're in the Village at 1am? How about Red Hook? Not to mention this allowed the service to be provided in cities all over the world which didn't previously have a car service at all.

> 10,000 highly-paid developers

Uber probably services more than 10,000x the number of rides than your car service did. I suppose you could try employing 10,000 "ladies with a phone" to handle that volume - but of course human dispatch quickly becomes unable to handle those kinds of volumes. Sorry, those developers are necessary for scale.

> and providing a marginally better level of service

Car-sharing with strangers was impossible before Uber/Lyft operated at scale. Share a car to work with some of your colleagues, who happen to live near you, sure. But to car pool anywhere at any time requires a huge fleet, and the technology to match riders who are taking the same route. That is an very difficult problem to solve, and yes it takes capable engineers. That car pooling allows fares which are probably around a third of what your car service charges. More improvements are on the way which should see short-medium trips of a comparable cost to public transport.

Not to mention providing this service in under-served and otherwise unprofitable areas, to minorities, at all times of day, all across the world. Plus of course a consistent name and brand, by far the biggest value-add ;)

Now integrate with other modes of transport - public transport, bikes, and yep even scooters. These companies are positioned to shape entire cities' transit systems (they already have, for better or for worse). They're not the same as your small car service, and they're not over-engineered. They're certainly not setting out every day worried about justifying their Silicon Valley existence.

Without a more detailed argument this sounds like you're just plugging your product.

Tasmanian here - I have never heard this either, and have most definitely never said it.

I'd be happy to talk with you, my company is always keen to speak with talented engineers.

I'm not sure that it is (as aaavl2821 has commented down the thread, "The liquidity discount that private equity investors use is typically 20-30%"), but more to the point this price is either accepted or rejected by Uber shareholders, not Uber's board. It's the shareholders who will decide if they will take that discount for the sake of liquidity, not some mystical market force you're alluding to. Given many of them are employees who may well just want to get their returns and buy a family home, I think we'll see a lot of them taking the offer up. They're just offloading their risk, and gaining liquidity.

> A far better explanation is that preferred has rights that add most of that value.

I did in fact note that in my original comment. But this only explains why SoftBank is willing to pay different prices for two different classes of shares. It doesn't mean Uber is suddenly worth $21B less because SoftBank was able to strike the deal, which is what I'm arguing against.

> You are essentially claiming that you are smarter and better informed than the participants in a large financial transaction

No, I'm not. I'm claiming that something a media outlet published is a distortion of the deal. They were not participating in the transaction.

We'll have a better discussion if you can leave the ad hominems out in the future.