I can't relate to this at all and I'm one of those "passionate programmers".
Perhaps it just manifests itself differently, but things like I've always preferred PHP to RoR because the PHP community is so much more practical and "gett'er done" mentality.
For me it's about knowing I've done good work. I don't need external affirmation, it's about _ME_ knowing I've done good work.
I had a good friend tell an allegory about a bricklayer who refused to build a porch for a house that was run down and when asked why the brick layer said he would not be proud of showing the work to his son.
I once built and maintained a system over a 5 year period that after the first 6 months never went down or stopped working unless external dependencies it relied on went down (think mail server going down causing emails to be unsent). It wasn't a simple system either, it deployed across multiple data centers around the world.
I'm quite proud of that work, what I'm most proud of is that no one ever went to work worried that system may prevent them from doing their job. I'm not saying it was completely bug free at all times, new features are always a risk, but it damned well did the core work day and day out and came to be something most employees of the company relied on every single day. That company was sold about 6 months after I left and the owner told me the system I built was one of the things they wanted access to.
I left my last job because their systems were complete and utter shit and the person who originally wrote them wielded enough power that he actively prevented us from fixing it. My problem wasn't the state of the system, my problem was being told I have to work with it like that without being able to improve it. Just to give you an idea, this guy once told me he had been doing it for 20 years and never needed to test on real data. Which is bullshit, when he did it he had access to everything, including production. I left because I'm not willing to not be able to improve a system that needs it that badly.
Long story short, I don't agree with this person description of what a passionate programmer cares about, at all. It feels like a caricature to me. But the amount of times I've seen complete and utter shit pushed as "it doesn't matter" is too high. system stability absolutely matters.
I think what the author was saying is that there is a difference between pride in one's self and pride in one's work.
The bricklayer allegory is interesting. If I were that contractor, I would have said sure I'll do it, and after it was done, I could say that porch is now the nicest part of the house.
This is kind of how I feel about functional programming like with Haskell or Rust. Once you get all the types in place, everything just fits together like a puzzle. I'm sure it's similar to a woodworker seeing a nice wood joint fitting together and becoming strong [0].
you're confusing population risk with personal risk.
Think about it like this.
The chances of dying in a vehicle wreck is very small. But those who have died in them probably would have preferred finding an alternative means to get to their destination.
If someone doesn't want to get a vaccine for fear they'll become a statistic, that's perfectly valid.
Yep, personal risk may be wildy different than a population risk.
As someone who lives in a sparsely populated, rural and mountainous area in Greece, the risk of being killed in a car accident still exists but it is a lot different than city accidents. Seatbelts, car mirrors, airbags are all mandated by the government.
Mirrors are not so useful, because not many cars are driving on the road at any given time. Most motorcycles do not have even one mirror because they are useless. Animals may cross the road, sharp rocks may have fallen on the street which can cause a vehicle to literally fall of a cliff. Good luck hoping for an airbag to save your life, while you are on a 10-20 meter fall.
Safety is still provided by the car gizmos, albeit to a very small negligible amount of the local population. Safety measures mandated from the government to the car manufacturers are more relevant to big cities than here.
Dangerity on the other hand, the ability to be in danger, is more preferable when it is cheaper. The car gizmos, take up space, and cost money. Safety is not always better, and when it costs too much money, every normal person should fear safety, and take the side of dangerity instead.
A normal non fat person, who exercises once in a while, and is reasonably mindful of their eating habits, should definitely choose the side of dangerity in case of Covid. Safety in that case costs too much money, and it should definitely be avoided.
I thought it was just me because I'm not an expert on engines, but apparently not.
And I agree with your last point, it was the other thing that was bothering me by it. What exactly is actionable here, to me it's just normal wear and tear.
> One could set up a dress code or any other arbitrary policy as a proxy to refuse entry to any group, without explicitly doing so.
Not in the US you can't. If a policy, even when applied equally, unduly affects a protected class, it's unconsitutional.
For example, if a restaurant enacts a "no headwear" policy it's still unconstitutional because by and large this is primarily going to affect the muslim population (and a segment of the jewish population), but will have very little effect on anyone else.
If the policy was instead "no headwear with words on it" the policy would NOT be unconstitutional because it does NOT unduly affect a specific group of people.
There are other exceptions, of course, generally around security. You can imagine a bank not allowing the full covering of ones face for security reasons even if that does appear to target people who wear burka's day to day.
---
so long story short is that it's not super simple, but in the US you absolutely cannot try and get around it by proxy and there is established law on how to identify this.
The problem isn't that there's a line at which it becomes ok to remove yourself from, or them, forcibly.
The problem is that line has to be very very extreme, which is why you're using the Nazi example, but it's being applied to very non-extreme things, which is why so many people disagree with you.
People say "paradox of tolerance" when I bring this up but I don't understand the purpose. Yes, And?
> The problem is that line has to be very very extreme, which is why you're using the Nazi example, but it's being applied to very non-extreme things,
It's being applied to the intolerant, as intended. There are intolerable philosophies being openly discussed on mass media (tucker Carlson restating great replacement theory, matt walsh calling for police to kick down the doors of drag performers). Openly white nationalist and fascist people are showing up in towns to harass and intimidate people. In this environment, when the system is failing to not tolerate these intolerant beliefs, or in the case of white nationalism especially, actively enforcing the intolerant "right" to promote their viewpoint, the peace treaty of tolerance has been broken, and those of us you'd describe of "tolerant" stop applying the rules of civil society to the people breaking them in front of all of our faces.
And at WORST the outcomes for these intolerants is they have to change venues for a university talk, or, get a Twitter ban, for which capitalist society handsomely rewards them with talk show appearances and podcast shows.
> People say "paradox of tolerance" when I bring this up but I don't understand the purpose. Yes, And?
It has a name and using that name allows for more succinct communication. It's also a way for those who are unfamiliar with the paradox of tolerance to realize it's a thing so they can look further into it if they so choose.
---
For the rest, it's just a lot of rationalization for why you think you should be able to prevent people from saying things. And you try to hang it on the paradox of tolerance as a justification.
But it's not really, the lesson from the paradox of tolerance isn't that the tolerant must become absolutely intolerant to protect themselves, it's that they cannot be absolutely tolerant.
The line where intolerance needs to kick in for protection shouldn't be "someone said a thing", but should instead be "someone did a thing". Those like yourself who try to use the paradox of tolerance to rationalize your views are treating tolerance/intolerance as a binary rather than a spectrum.
And finally,
I'm a minority myself and have been called racial epithets. I remember the KKK coming into a nearby town and holding a rally back in the 90's. People were pissed off, but even then I defended their right to have the rally. My recommendation to everyone was just don't go. Imagine if they held a KKK rally and no one showed up, how hilarious would that be?
I would be no more ok with minorities attacking KKK members than I would be with KKK members attacking minorities. There's an equilibrium and fairness there that doesn't exist with words. If it's not ok for KKK members to tell a black person they're inferior, is it not ok for a black person to tell a KKK member they're inferior?
This obviously won't convince you as you're not thinking rationally, but that doesn't make the above any less true.
Perhaps it just manifests itself differently, but things like I've always preferred PHP to RoR because the PHP community is so much more practical and "gett'er done" mentality.
For me it's about knowing I've done good work. I don't need external affirmation, it's about _ME_ knowing I've done good work.
I had a good friend tell an allegory about a bricklayer who refused to build a porch for a house that was run down and when asked why the brick layer said he would not be proud of showing the work to his son.
I once built and maintained a system over a 5 year period that after the first 6 months never went down or stopped working unless external dependencies it relied on went down (think mail server going down causing emails to be unsent). It wasn't a simple system either, it deployed across multiple data centers around the world.
I'm quite proud of that work, what I'm most proud of is that no one ever went to work worried that system may prevent them from doing their job. I'm not saying it was completely bug free at all times, new features are always a risk, but it damned well did the core work day and day out and came to be something most employees of the company relied on every single day. That company was sold about 6 months after I left and the owner told me the system I built was one of the things they wanted access to.
I left my last job because their systems were complete and utter shit and the person who originally wrote them wielded enough power that he actively prevented us from fixing it. My problem wasn't the state of the system, my problem was being told I have to work with it like that without being able to improve it. Just to give you an idea, this guy once told me he had been doing it for 20 years and never needed to test on real data. Which is bullshit, when he did it he had access to everything, including production. I left because I'm not willing to not be able to improve a system that needs it that badly.
Long story short, I don't agree with this person description of what a passionate programmer cares about, at all. It feels like a caricature to me. But the amount of times I've seen complete and utter shit pushed as "it doesn't matter" is too high. system stability absolutely matters.