[nocman]

People are entitled to their opinions, and they are entitled to share them on HN. There are plenty of reasons to like Electron, and there are also plenty of reasons to say "ugh, Electron".

Instead of saying "Let's keep this sort of comment off HN" because you happen to disagree with the guy's opinion, why not just ask him why he's so dead set against using Electron for this sort of app?

People usually have strong opinions for a reason -- it isn't always because they are ignorant, or because they are arrogant jerks (yes, sometimes that happens, but not always). You might even learn something about Electron from the guy's explanation (depending, of course, on what his reasons are).

[always_good]

We all know why one might prefer something over Electron. It's just a worthless comment.

"Ugh, the color blue! Me no likey!" Does it really matter why they don't like blue, or whether I agree with them?

[nocman]

"We all know why one might prefer something over Electron."

Actually, that's not true. There are most likely some folks reading who don't know much about Electron. Also, just because there are a number of well known reasons why someone might dislike Electron doesn't mean that they are this person's reasons for disliking it. Perhaps he has reasons for disliking it of which you are unaware. If you don't want to bother asking him that's fine, but that doesn't make the question not worth asking to everyone else.

"'Ugh, the color blue! Me no likey!' Does it really matter why they don't like blue, or whether I agree with them?"

Not liking the color blue isn't even close to the same thing. Peoples likes and dislikes about colors are very subjective, and people often don't have any definable reason for why they like or dislike a color.

That is very rarely true about development tools, frameworks and libraries. If a developer does not like them, they usually have a particular list of reasons why. You may disagree with their reasons, or the way they present them, but you still might learn something of value from hearing their list.

"It's just a worthless comment."

It's only a worthless comment to you because you made assumptions about why the comment was made. I understand why you might be put off by the way the original comment was worded, and yes I would have preferred that they elaborate more about the reasons for their dislike of the choice of Electron up front. However, I think it is a mistake to assume that you could not have learned anything of value from engaging with the person who left that comment (instead of assuming you already knew what the reasons behind it were.)

[Veen]

Agreed. It's a fact of life that Electron will become increasingly popular. If every discussion of an app that uses Electron degenerates into snarky comments about Electron, the opportunity for a valuable conversation about the app itself is wasted.

[nocman]

"It's a fact of life that Electron will become increasingly popular."

Very likely, perhaps, but it is not "a fact of life", especially in the long term -- Electron's popularity in the future is far from a decided fact. I think it has a very good shot at lasting a long time, but in this industry things often do not go the way you think they will.

If indeed "every discussion of an app that uses Electron degenerates into snarky comments about Electron" then maybe it is time to look seriously at problems with Electron. One of the best things about HN is that discussions about the technologies used to implement applications happen.

Now if someone comes into the conversation, snarks, and then is unwilling to engage in discussions about why they dislike the choice, that's a different matter.

I do think, however, that discussions about the technologies chosen by a developer to implement their application are worth having, even if they person starting the conversation is not terribly diplomatic about the way they start it. There does come a point (different for different people) where you decide a conversation is not worth having. I am merely suggesting that it could well be worth your time to not assume you've reached that point so early in the conversation.