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by asimeqi
1831 days ago
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Felleisen is incredibly passionate about programming. He has strong opinions and will tell you about them. I graduated from NEU many years ago. He was not my professor and I doubt he ever knew my name. I happened to listen to a general talk he was once giving when he suddenly launched into a tangent about how much better Scheme's call/cc was than C's setjmp()/longjmp(). I completely agreed but thought that he was beating a dead horse and I might have smirked a little bit. 3 days later he accosted me in a different building and berated me for thinking setjmp()/longjmp() was better! I never got the chance to explain myself but I really think it doesn't matter. There are many people who don't like his style but I personally think it's fine. He is pretty direct and obviously gets results. I wish I would have been able to take his courses and maybe even work with him on his projects. |
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I think this is sorta emblematic of the problem. People respond to the same stimuli differently, for some people, this would completely ruin their day and leave them terrified.
I want to believe that folks like Felleisen don't think they're being malicious, but they fail to empathize with others and are sometimes oblivious to the power dynamics. Over time they get used to not being called out for their behavior because people start to facilitate it for a variety of reasons. Felleisen's opinion carries weight far more than some random student. A disparaging word, even in passing, could break someone's career. Certainly people should learn to grow a bit of a thick skin, but there are many people like this comment [1] where Felleisen has crossed a line and is just clearly abusive. I can't imagine having an experience like that, then think about the fact that he might be on the committee reviewing your dissertation.
I tip my hat to you that you are able to walk off such things, but not everyone can do so and failure to empathize with that reality is a major problem in society. Nobody should be babied, but nobody should be needlessly berated.
> He is pretty direct and obviously gets results.
I really dislike this train of thought. I've heard it before and not once have I seen it as a truism. It is excessively simplistic; never mind how the sausage is made, as long as the sausage tastes good? Universities expect professors to generate grants. If you burn out 5-10 grad students a year, but you keep the money flowing in, the university will not really question it, but there are 5-10 promising careers that have been destroyed.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27546538