[undecidabot]

A similar distinction was made by Yegge before [1], which he (unfortunately) labeled as "liberal" and "conservative". It was quite controversial [2].

Another similar idea is Fowler's software development attitude [3]. He uses the terms "enabling" and "directing" instead.

[1] https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSKeg4v...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365255

[3] https://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/SoftwareDevelopmentAttitu...

[platz]

It's hard to describe, but the discourse on hn in 2012 just felt different in some weird way.

[spraak]

The tone of the posts seems about the same as now to me, but the top level comments do seem to be longer and with more analysis than most top level comments lately.