Why would someone down vote an opinion that they are okay with Java? It added to the conversation. Personally I prefer C# and Swift to Java but others idea are just as valid.
Imho people are just expressing their disagreement. I know downvote is not meant for that, but I think HN is to blame here. If you have two arrows, one up and one down, why is up for agreement while down is not for disagreement, but for "this doesn't add to conversation"? The actions should be opposite, or they should use different icons.
The implication is "I have no interest in this because I'm happy with what I have". Okay, that's fine, please enjoy your Java and build wonderful things. Oh, BTW, why are you typing into a reply box on a thread you have no interest in? And the implication there is because your tool is a poopy head and I wanted to subtly point that out by expressing my lack of interest.
So, yeah, go away because that's not contributing to the conversation.
> So, yeah, go away because that's not contributing to the conversation.
Well, maybe there’s another implication.
Google switching to C# would lead to them neglecting and deprecating the Java ecosystem on Android. That’s gonna be real ugly for app devs, ending up having to rewrite everything.
So, maybe, there is a real contribution in the comment, which you just haven’t seen yet?
Yet, that’s what’d happen. Google hasn’t even managed to support C++ alongside of Java as first class citizen, adding yet another one would make the situation even worse.
> Why would someone down vote an opinion that they are okay with Java?
Paul Graham once said [1]:
I think it's ok to use the up and down
arrows to express agreement. Obviously
the uparrows aren't only for applauding
politeness, so it seems reasonable that
the downarrows aren't only for booing
rudeness.
It only becomes abuse when people resort
to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of
comments by one user without reading
them in order to subtract maximum karma.
Fortunately we now have several levels
of software to protect against that.
Many have taken this to mean that down voting a comment when they disagree with the opinion therein, no matter how well it argues that opinion and no matter how much it contributes to the conversation, is fine.
This is the number one reason why I looked for a different place and was hoping lobst.er would have taken off.
The down vote causes the comment to be dimmed and seen as a rejection to the comment. It is very frustrating when the top right side is your name and your "Hacker News Points" so I don't get why the down vote if you disagree. A down vote kills the conversation.
A useful opinion is the result of some thought process and set of inputs. By not explaining that thought process or its set of inputs, it is impossible for others to validate whether an opinion is reasonable and/or useful.