[brazilianabroad]

I don't understand why my comment keeps getting flagged. "You need to study more" is not meant as an insult, simply as advice.

'You're too ignorant to be judging whole ecosystems as "shit".' is also not meant offensively, simply as a statement of fact.

Someone who presumably writes code for a living, but doesn't understand binary floating-point numbers, and finds themselves in a position to criticise JavaScript as being "shit" while not even having a sufficient understanding of their preferred technology to realize that it has the same (expected) behavior is objectively someone who "needs to study more" and who is "too ignorant to judge whole ecosystems as 'shit'".

Edit: Before someone says it's because I wasn't being helpful, both my comments also linked to http://0.30000000000000004.com/ which contains an explanation.

[hombre_fatal]

I do think that your post might help to serve some humility to OP. Knee-jerk "X is shit" posts are all too common and totally amateur. With experience you learn to appreciate that everything is just trade-offs.

That OP was so wrong about their 'smoking gun of Bad' hopefully makes them pause in the future before condemning something. Though I don't think such low-effort condemnation posts belong on HN anyways.

[codetrotter]

Yes well, it comes off as flaming, and no matter who started it it is only adding fuel to the fire. Flamewars are not productive, no matter which side of it each of the people are at.

Statement of fact or not, and insult or not, the question is, does the comment contribute to the conversation? And does it do so in a tone that is likely to be received well by others?

Even if someone is inexperienced, is telling them to study more and telling them that they are ignorant useful? Not really IMO. Aside from the thing about tone, it is also a question of whether it is giving actual actionable advice.

Actionable advice includes pointing to specific sources of information, like one of the sibling comments did.

Non-actionable advice includes telling someone to just study more in general.

[brazilianabroad]

> Yes well, it comes off as flaming,

Saying that someone who doesn't understand binary floating point numbers is ignorant and needs to study, while pointing them to a study resource, isn't flaming, it's an act of selflessness. It's a favor, a grant of knowledge and a nudge in the right direction.

> Even if someone is inexperienced, is telling them to study more and telling them that they are ignorant useful?

Yes

> Aside from the thing about tone, it is also a question of whether it is giving actual actionable advice.

The sibling comments did not exist when I posted my first one. It had also a link to actionable advice.

Mind you, no-one is forced to know how binary floating point operations work, as long as they don't intend on passing incorrect judgement that's brash and impolite.