How to Argue about Code
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This document discusses effective strategies for arguing about code on the internet, particularly in open-source communities. It emphasizes the importance of having purposeful arguments that aim for wise agreements, efficiency, and preserving relationships, while providing various tactical approaches to maintain constructive dialogue. The content includes examples from GitHub discussions, underscoring the necessity of staying on topic, being respectful, and addressing misunderstandings thoughtfully.
How to Argue about Code
- 1. How to argue about Code
- 2. How to argue about Code (on the internet)
- 3. Why?
- 4. internet + open-source software + GitHub
- 5. Our arguments should be purposeful.
- 8. “In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.” Carl Sagan (1987)
- 9. “Who the hell are you?”
- 10. No one of consequence.
- 11. “Where do you get off censoring me, you fascist?”
- 12. I don’t.
- 13. Motives for having a code argument:
- 14. to troll
- 15. to feel awesome about yourself
- 16. to persuade others to your way of thinking
- 17. to understand the subject better
- 19. An argument has three goals.
- 20. Goal 1: It should produce a wise agreement, if possible.
- 21. Goal 2: It should be efficient.
- 22. Goal 3: It should not damage the relationship between parties.
- 23. Our case study:
- 26. Tactic 1: Separate the people from the problem.
- 27. bad: the objective nature of the problem how humans feel about the problem
- 28. bad: the objective nature of the problem how humans feel about the problem
- 29. good: the objective nature of the problem how humans feel about the problem
- 31. response from Jacob Thornton (@fat):
- 32. comments one and two:
- 33. comment three:
- 34. comment four:
- 35. (this is why you should be nice)
- 36. Tactic 2: Focus on interests, not positions.
- 37. Tactic 3: Invent options for mutual gain.
- 38. Tactic 4: Insist on objective criteria.
- 39. (standards)
- 40. (benchmarks)
- 47. “So what should I do?”
- 48. How to think:
- 49. Retain a willingness to be convinced
- 50. Imagine where others are coming from
- 51. Account for your own taste
- 52. Account for your own emotions
- 53. John Resig “I learned some things about jQuery today…”
- 54. Recognize derails as they happen
- 55. Ahead: An inventory of the discussions taking place in a single closed ticket on Twitter Bootstrap’s GitHub project
- 56. main question: Should Bootstrap change a syntactic shortcut that does not minify properly in JSMin?
- 57. main question (broadened): Should library authors care about interoperability with JSMin? Or should JSMin accommodate code that Crockford finds distasteful?
- 58. derails and meta-discussions perpetuated by at least two of the 143 ticket participants:
- 59. “People who don’t use semicolons are JavaScript hipsters.” “No, people who are fanatical about semicolons are just spreading FUD.”
- 60. “@fat is being a jackass and a bad project steward.” “No, people like you are bitching about a library they got for free.”
- 61. “Semicolon or not, that line should still be rewritten.”
- 62. “JSMin sucks anyway. People should use some other minifier.”
- 63. “Who cares about minification? Everyone’s got a fast connection now.”
- 64. “We’ve now spent like a hundred comments arguing about a single semicolon that @fat is too stubborn to add.”
- 65. “We are bikeshedding like hell up in here.”
- 66. “Stop posting on this ticket! GitHub sends me a notification with each new comment.”
- 67. also: trolls
- 68. also: wisecracks
- 69. meanwhile:
- 70. Staying on topic requires moderation.
- 71. How to speak:
- 72. Be nice.
- 73. Speak with surgical precision.
- 74. E-Prime
- 75. “Any proposition containing the word ‘is’ creates a linguistic structural confusion which will eventually give birth to serious fallacies.” Alfred Korzybski, Semanticist
- 76. “PHP is awful.”
- 77. “PHP is awful.” “Whenever I use PHP, I end up longing for the logical API and unsurprising behavior of Ruby or JavaScript.”
- 78. “jQuery is easier to use than MooTools.”
- 79. “jQuery is easier to use than MooTools.” “I find jQuery more intuitive to use than MooTools.”
- 80. Be honest in your characterizations.
- 81. “What if the other side won’t play along?”
- 82. Don’t rise to the bait.
- 84. Emphasize the contrast between your tactics and your opponents’.
- 85. Nicole Sullivan, “Don’t feed the trolls” http://bit.ly/JWksIU
- 86. In short: Postel’s Law
- 87. “Why do I have to take the high road?”
- 88. (fin)