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by nupark2 5184 days ago
Well, he is a part of the Ruby community, and they do often seem to often favor emotional arguments conveyed through harsh language.
2 comments

What a crass, and inaccurate, generalization.
Now, I'm not equipped to perform a statistically valid sampling of all conference talks, but pervasive anecdotal evidence lends credence to this notion.

Specifically, this comes to mind:

http://lifehacker.com/5859392/swearing-to-make-your-point-a-...

As well as this:

http://www.zedshaw.com.sharedcopy.com/rants/51489cec9386f7c1...

And this:

http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/posts/15-potty-mouths

There are more, but I don't think I need to internet-sleuth the entire set of well-known Ruby / Web personalities to demonstrate the point: a base lack of professionalism abounds.

Even thirty more examples would not neccessarily mean Rubyists are "often" like this. There are tens of thousands of them.

If ruby-talk, #ruby-lang, ruby-core, and Ruby conference talks were typically littered with swearing, there'd be a point. As it is, it's a generalisation formed off the back of a handful of cases. Stereotyping, if you will.

I've been covering the news in the Ruby world for about 6 years now, almost full time. People are inventing these silly stereotypes as a way to discredit the language and it's users, it's not based in reality.

... Yet there are a few people who agreed and think the same way as he is...
There are people who think those of certain races and genders typically act in a certain way too.
If you can't see the point because of the "harsh language" then I apologize, I might publish a politically correct version for you then :)
There Are Lots Of Seemingly Trivial Ways To Make Your Text Harder To Read.

yOu mAy sAy tHat pEople wHo hAve tRouble rEading sUch tExt sHould jUst mAke mOre eFfort.

But.you.are.writing.the.blog.,.so.surely.you.want.to.be.as.widely.read.as.possible.?.

Postel's law (gently reformulated) is important when you have one-to-many communication. "be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept".

Heh, I really liked the analogy with Postel's law, and I guess you're right. The main criticising I've received about the blog post has been about the swearing, so I guess I could skip that next time.
The harsh language doesn't convey the point at all. It's an appeal to emotion, and has no place in a rational argument.
This is not (only) a rational argument, but a call to action, and that requires an appeal to emotion.