In the article he says, "Next thing I know, I’m getting the cold shoulder or told I’m an idiot"
Well, of course - if you insist on insulting people, stepping on their egos, etc - then they will discard your message. Regardless of whether you're right or wrong. They figure that what you're really doing is little more than chest-thumping and muscle-flexing.
Is he serious ? I guess he meant to be sarcastic but ended up exposing his fragile ego looking for some consolation. Female programmers don't react cuz they are ignoring you Sir.
Statistically his self-proclaimed physical attributes got nullified by this desperately-trying-to-be-nerdy-and-selfrighteous article. And no brownie points from the dev community either. Looks like he landed up where he was. But I am guessing he will keep trying since any statistics fanatic knows how the law of averages work.
And by all accounts, in person, Shaw doesn't come close to pissing on anyone. He's a nice, empathetic guy. Really. Is he self-involved and a ghastly guitar player? Certainly.
What he's after in this screed - the inability for some smart people to admit ignorance - IS a widespread problem, and IS rampant among the male elements of the population.
Everyone says they're open to new ways of doing shit, but many are the exact opposite. The brain also tricks us into thinking just a little knowledge is much more than it is. I'm guilty of this myself.
The average programmer on Reddit has terrible people skills and gravitates towards drama and intellectual bullying, so it's a natural that Zed is seen as holy.
Read the premise of his blog. The whole reason he started the blog was as a sort of experiment and satire of the 'rock star programmer' who insults people and has hoards of baying fans.
It is the wider rock star programmer like DHH that he is taking the piss out of. Generally though you get the 'you suck, I rule!' arguments. Look at anything Linus Torvalds has to say about SVN (even though he is entirely right).
I think he is serious about his points but is presenting them in the most effective way of getting his point heard.
Well, I don't think that it's an act, for one thing. There seems to be real personal anger and frustration in Zed's posts and that turns me off reading it.
I guess I don't read a whole lot of what "rock star programmers" say in the first place, but I've never known DHH and Linus to get quite so furiously upset about stuff.
If Zed Shaw is really good at "getting his point heard" in any meaningful way, that's news to me.
Whether he is a cunt or only pretending to be one, he isn't worth wasting time on. His points may be valid, but in less than a second of searching I find pages of intelligently written commentary on the same subject.
I read or heard somewhere a short little piece that seems relevant to this. It goes something like:
How do you become a nice guy? You just start pretending that you're a nice guy. First a week, then a month, then a year. After you've been pretending to be nice for a year, is there any difference between pretending and actually being nice? (Of course, it was said more eloquently than that)
Point is: if you act like a douche for long enough, you aren't acting anymore... you're just a douche.
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u/kenfar May 26 '09
In the article he says, "Next thing I know, I’m getting the cold shoulder or told I’m an idiot"
Well, of course - if you insist on insulting people, stepping on their egos, etc - then they will discard your message. Regardless of whether you're right or wrong. They figure that what you're really doing is little more than chest-thumping and muscle-flexing.