[throwanem]

"It was eye-opening to see how little attention was paid to serious [people] vs hucksters," you said in a comment last week. That's a good start, and the right frame of thought in which to try to infer an answer to the question you didn't quite ask.

I also realize the insult you didn't quite offer, but while there are grounds for anyone with a Ph.D. to offer me offense, breadth of knowledge is really none of them. You are an expert specialist and I respect that as it deserves, which is less than you imagine but more than you fear.

[n4r9]

I simply gave some pointers on how to use less aggressive language. If you perceived a hidden insult, I'd encourage you to reflect whether that comes from the same place that the aggressive language does.

[throwanem]

"Aggressive?" I would go as far as uncompromising, discourteous, perhaps even rude. But aggression? Really. Do me the courtesy of not resorting to the absurd, not at least if you mean me to go on taking you seriously.

[n4r9]

Yes; from what I've seen, you can be hostile, presumptuous, belitting, and confrontational. What you just posted is a good example. There's just no need for the section starting "not at least...". It's an intimidating phrase.

[throwanem]

"Intimidating." I remind you this is a website, where I have publicly disclosed my real identity for years while you remain anonymous.

That is your choice, of course. But this is what I mean about not taking you seriously. No remotely reasonable person could possibly believe anyone competent to participate in Hacker News and be able also to honestly claim to be intimidated by someone taking an impatient tone in mere discourse on the relative merits of programming languages, in a context where I am the one whose identity is known.

Such a transparent lie would ill befit a child of five, and whatever axe you have here to grind, the way you go about it is just embarrassing. Your critique, such as it was, has been submitted, received, and evaluated as ill founded. You have no further business with me.

[n4r9]

All this stuff about "taking you seriously" is basic emotional manipulation. It adds nothing to the argument and serves no purpose than to try to make me feel inferior. Same thing when you compare me to a five year old. You dress it up with pompous phrases like "child of five" (or "remotely reasonable" or "mere discourse"), which I suspect is another way to project dominance. Perhaps you don't like facing up to the fact that your language is hostile and confrontational, but it is.

[throwanem]

My language is exactly as I intend it to be, but yours is not; you meant to say I sought to intimidate, and ended up saying I intimidated. I remain convinced this is less typo and more admission against interest, but never mind; even at face value it's embarrassing, out of someone who has after all essayed to critique my usage.

We seem to be having an argument that you started, inasmuch as I was not actually in need of any explanation of the phenomenon I described; it does not bewilder at this late date when those with extensive social and professional investment in the waning Rails scene react badly to discussion of that wane. If the progress of that argument fails to satisfy, perhaps another interlocutor will give you a more enjoyable time.

Until then, you will either address any of the variety of substantive points raised earlier in discussion which you have carefully heretofore ignored, or you'll receive no further response from me. Not that I don't come here precisely for pointless disputation, but even my battered pride eventually scruples at this kind of pop-psychological pettifogging you so favor.