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It's a Chesterton's Fence situation. An outsider is just as likely to be an arrogant fool, and an arrogant fool is more likely to find skepticism offensive than a normal person. There are plenty of people, even on Hacker News, who assume that they are by default more knowledgeable than anybody else, and therefore are obliged to look at any given situation, opine, and set the record straight. Other people don't matter, and certainly their 'experiences' won't count. So, it's not surprising or offensive to run into the 'water squirt bottle of correction', where kitty gets unexpectedly hit with the message 'opining on experience you've never experienced disqualifies you as a first class advice giver'. Chesterton's Fence is of course the idea that, if you encounter a fence and you don't know what it's for, you don't take it down until you do know what the fence was for. People tend to get worked up about the things they see that, to them, seem to be there for no reason, and advocate all the more vigorously for removing such things when to them, the existence of the thing is obvious nonsense with no possible justification… they would rather think that a thing was done by a total fool who's so inferior to them as to be hopelessly incapable, than consider the idea that their superiority might be questionable. |
I've learnt not to critique other peoples designs without a full understanding. The designer probably would have changed a few things if they had a second attempt. Unknown and usually silly requirements can play a big part in design that you as an outsider are unaware of. I've learnt to assume competence rather than incompetence. At the time, there was likely a very good reason for such a decision.