Perhaps the HN users who realized it was a fun tongue-in-cheek parable followed the rules by silently voting it up, instead of filling up the response page with posts that say, in so many words, "HAHAHA L0LZ".
What is there to do with this besides chuckle and move on? I didn't come up with anything. I suppose I could destroy its life by publicly dissecting it. But, in the spirit of the original author, I would prefer to leave the interpretation of the story as an exercise for the student.
I think Lispers like to pretend they are soooooooo smart and so baffled by the stupidity of (cough) "normal" people that they don't dare assume any lower bound on human intelligence.
"You eat poop? Really? Ummm. Gosh. Welllllll, that's understandable. I... um... used to eat poop too! Before I learned about food. But if you give me a chance I think I can convince you of the merits of food. Let me tell you about my Road to Food!"
(Yeah, I love Lisp and like HN; I just can't resist poking some fun.)
I haven't noticed this. Most people here seem to be PHP "programmers", which I find hilarious. There is also a large Ruby contingent (whenever someone links their open source project, it's always Ruby.)
Why the quotes around "programmers"? I think Facebook is mostly PHP (or at least was initially?) and I am definitely not going to claim no one working at Facebook is a programmer.
I understand that PHP is an atrocious language (although I haven't tried it myself). But if someone uses it to create a product that people want and satisfies a need, more power to them, right?
I'm just saying that the demographic here is more people that think they can get rich off some PHP app than hard-core Lisp hackers. I am not saying that there are no PHP programmers, merely that the PHP-lovers here don't do much programming.
I am being unfair to PHP, though... Java sucks too.
To me, there's a difference between having a bias or giving a personal opinion and intentionally insulting a group of people. But to you I guess there isn't.
If you met someone face to face who happened to be a PHP programmer, would you let them know that ostensibly based solely on the language that they happen to be using at the time, you don't consider them a real programmer?
I'm just saying man, it's a slippery slope and one that I actively try to avoid these days.
If you met someone face to face who happened to be a PHP programmer, would you let them know that ostensibly based solely on the language that they happen to be using at the time, you don't consider them a real programmer?
What is there to do with this besides chuckle and move on? I didn't come up with anything. I suppose I could destroy its life by publicly dissecting it. But, in the spirit of the original author, I would prefer to leave the interpretation of the story as an exercise for the student.