When strongly stated opinions bring out defensive anger in computer programmers

This reminds me of the reactions I got when I wrote my essay “Object Oriented Programming is an expensive disaster which must end”.

Then he started by banging on everything that didn’t conform to His Way of Doing Things: his process, his tools. Everything else was “stupid,” “dumb,” “moronic.”

I got the impression he was hiding his own fear of inadequacy behind a wall of disapproval and smack talk. I know this method. I used to use it myself, when I felt for sure I’d be fired from the team as soon as they realized I’d never used Handlebars.

Then the group started going along with it: jeering, making jokes, mirroring that negativity. The room was roast of Things “We” Don’t Like.

Now, I’m used to smack talk from a fair number of European conferences where public figures joust and argue approaches with a helpful serving of humor and good intentions, on stage or at bars. But this was one-sided: a bunch of developers agreeing with each other or bailing on the conversation because they couldn’t.

It was like someone sucked out all my enthusiasm and wiped the floor with it. My smile faded off my face, and I started shutting down intake not because I was challenged or disagreed, but because his approach was so negative. It was less stressful to read a blog post on the same topic on my laptop and tune everyone out, and I did so.

…Now if this were Safari or FireFox, would this tweet have happened, or would it have been kept securely in the mind of the tweeter? An example of classic knee-jerk reaction to any mention of Things We Don’t Like: find a reason to criticize it and tear it apart. Prove how much you know. Get a pat on the head from your friends, maybe a gold star from teacher or a cookie from Mom. It’s what we all hope for when we express an opinion we expect to be favorably received by our friends and peers. It’s why Gamer Gate is a tire fire. It’s why Flash developers have all but disappeared from the community, taking their domain knowledge of motion design and optimization with them. It’s why bullies end up with fandoms and smart people go silent and underground.