Yes, he carefully caged his words to avoid explicitly making the generalization, while still communicating that's what he believes. Fortunately, the English language is not strictly literal, and I am allowed to respond to the intent and implication of his comment.
Ironically, if I were as defensive as you, I could have misread the parent I responded to as saying that I must not be a top coder because I do code outside of work. Thankfully, I was able to simply respond respectfully with my different experience instead.
Since I default to respecting the experience and ability of everyone who posts here, I indeed found it ironic that my experience would differ so sharply from Retric's.
"Since I default to respecting the experience and ability of everyone who posts here..."
Oh, come on. I wasn't going to bring this up, but since you're playing the role of the civilized martyr, why don't you tell everyone how your first reaction was to send me an email calling me a "dickhead" for what I wrote? You have a funny way of "respecting" people.
No, I don't agree with you, but I had enough respect not to call you names, and I had the guts to say what I said in public.
Wow, you really are trying your best to turn this thread into a full-on flame war. :/
You are acting like a child and at this point, I'm truly shocked by how pathetic and capricious you're acting in response to a stranger's statement about his experience with computer programming. I'll respond to this and then I'm done.
I wasn't going to bring this up, but ...
But of course you're gonna. Keep it classy.
... since you're playing the role of the civilized martyr ...
No martyrs here, just someone pointing out how intellectually nonsensical your reaction was.
why don't you tell everyone how your first reaction was to send me an email calling me a "dickhead" for what I wrote?
First off, you're taking that way out of context. Second, e-mailing you was far from my first reaction. My first reaction was to flame you back in this thread. I realized that wasn't contributing to the thread in any positive way, so I rewrote my response in a more constructive way, and added the little note "edited for tone and temper." I did that because I respect Hacker News.
Then I e-mailed you out of band to tell you (1) you misread my post, (2) you flamed me personally without provocation, so I thought it merited a personal response, (3) you seem like a smart guy, I have no problem with you beyond this little incident, and I really respect your work but (4) your vitriolic, misinformed flame unnecessarily made you look like a "defensive dickhead."
So writing you personally to address a personal issue was actually my third or fourth reaction and I thought it was quite appropriate to take personal sentiments outside of the thread here. Lest it descend to the flame war which you seem so intent on having.
You have a funny way of "respecting" people.
Now who's the martyr? I said that respect is my default. You coming out of the woodwork to flame me and call me "stupid" chips away at it. And you, hours later, still upset over nothing and choosing to bring up a personal communication out of context pretty much voids it.
And what you call "guts" I call absolutely pathetic. You've got a Ph.D. in Computational Biology and you're letting your feelings get hurt that someone, somewhere on the internet might think you're just an ok coder. And all that based on a completely innocuous statement not even directed at you. Not to mention, you go out of your way to attack someone personally and call them names based on this imagined slight, and then get sanctimonious when they call out your actions in a less than complimentary manner.
Your behavior here is bizarre and, to be frank, a little scary. You can flame on all you want, but I've got no interest in interacting with you or the thread further. The funny part is, I am actually sorry. I must have really hit a nerve and hurt your feelings to provoke this kind of response. Good luck to you and take care.
