[permille42]

Being a CTO doesn't mean you have any value as a software engineer. Hell I was offered a role as a CTO. I turned that shit down. Babysitting others is not my forte, nor is spending my time running a business instead of learning more tech.

Am I supposed to be impressed by earning money coding at 12? I'm not. At all.

I assume this is what you are referring to ( Blastar for Spectravideo 318/328 ): https://ia803005.us.archive.org/4/items/blastar-elon-musk-sp...

Link to source code instead of image: https://undone.se/misc/blastar.txt

Some discussion about whether he is good at programming. https://www.quora.com/How-good-is-Elon-Musk-at-programming

It seems to amount to "he wrote some basic and assembly language a long time ago."

I call nonsense. I've written over 3 million lines of code over my career spread across 8 different languages. If what exists of Musk's code publicly means he is a programming genius then I must be a programming god.

By the way: I also wrote code at the age of 9. I was writing assembly language at 10. Despite this, what I did when I was a kid, or even middle age, doesn't mean squat. What matters is consistently writing high quality code over your entire career. Being a manager is not being a coder. They are very different.

Also, he doesn't have knowledge of what Signal services are doing internally so his comment is simply speculation.

You seem to hate my condemnation of his coding skills, but my condemnation of his twitter comment is no worse than his own mockery of Signal; a free service serving the community.

Elon Musk, afaiac is a rich asshole who doesn't do shit to contribute. If he is so great, where is his free replacement for Signal that is far better hmm? He can certainly afford to hire some people who actually know how to code to write it for him.

[eternalsculptor]

You need to relax. Yes his comment is speculation, does that mean he is necessarily wrong? He is giving his first-thought analysis of what might be the problem at Signal. Is that such a crime?

[permille42]

The recent release of the details of Signal stack requirements is rather damning. I actually agree based on it that they are likely doing things badly.

I don't though think that Musk had that information when he made his off the cuff pronouncement. I think he just says whatever he feels like and everyone automatically assumes he is correct because of his success/riches. This is my main objection to him. Respecting someones opinion and assuming they are correct because they are rich is just plain disgusting. Society should be better than this.

I also think that someone in his position should not be mocking a company that provides a free service. It just makes him look like an ass imo. In turn it makes me think that those who upvote that shit here on Hacker News are sheep.

If he gave some reasonable explanation or details, then fine. If he used reasonable capacity planning and some sort of evidence to demonstrate that such an accusation is reasonable, fine. He didn't.

This is what happened: Musk thinks to himself "Signal is better than Whatsapp, I should recommend Signal and people will think I'm awesome." His recommendation of Signal was merely the statement of an attention whore. Signal was obviously better for so long. Anyone worth anything in security / tech knew this a long time ago.

After Musk recommended Signal, it blew up in his face because they couldn't handle the capacity increase immediately due to his recommendation. This makes Musk look bad, because he just recommended them. So what does Musk do? Musk denounces and mocks Signal.

This is why Musk is an asshole and deserves to be mocked and attacked. It is all a fucking publicity stunt to him. He doesn't give a shit about security or helping out Signal. All he cares about is acting like king of the world. Fuck him.

[eternalsculptor]

I certainly do see what you're saying. I think at least 40-60% of what Musk says at any given time is pure sci-fi speculation or hype around an upcoming product/company. I also find it obnoxious how his fanboys and fangirls mindlessly clap at any word he says, like some sort of Pavlovian chimps. On this we cannot agree more.

However, whatever his motivation, I think the guy is genuinely intelligent. It's tough to not admit this. His mere intuition is fair match for the experience of many seasoned engineers (if what we read about him is true). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think he donated to the Signal foundation. At the very least he has put money where his mouth is.