[rpeden]

As others have pointed out, people being mean, angry complainers when something doesn't work the way they want it to isn't unique to the programming or open source communities.

I think some of us are bothered by it because we tend to to think of ourselves as logical and rational, and we expect others like us to behave in the same way.

From observing things over the past decade, it appears to me that there are plenty of developers who are willing to fly off the handle and write whiny rants about things that irritate them.

Maybe part of it is that the posts that sound like they're written by a petulant child get the most attention. I often find myself disagreeing with points in them, but have never felt the need to spout insults about libraries and frameworks or their creators.

Up 'til now, I've been content to reply to these rants on HN and Reddit, and try to inject a bit of reason and calm into the discussion. I think it's time to be more courageous.

I'd like to start writing rebuttal blog posts in which I tell the authors they sound like whiny ingrates and demonstrate how they could have written their criticism constructively. I'm just not sure whether trying be be reasonable will actually help the community, or will just get me lots of nasty replies and e-mails.