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I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool

Phil Haack response to my criticism about the ASP.Net MVC routing API really bothers me:

We spent a lot of time thinking about these design decisions and trade-offs, but it goes without saying that it will invite blanket criticisms. Fortunately, part of my job description is to have a thick skin. ;)

In part, by favoring usability in this case, we’ve added a bit of friction for those who are just starting out and have trouble using Google.

Is this an appropriate response?

I don't think that I threw a blanket criticism there. In fact, I was very cautious in the way I phrased that post. I found an API flaw, and I pointed it out. Saying that I am a newbie or that I lack the skills of using google is inaccurate and insulting.

Print | posted on Friday, November 07, 2008 1:53 AM

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 1:57 AM jdn

It was a joke. Lighten up.

But he will retract it if you really think he was serious (read his comments).

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 2:13 AM Jeremy

It was not personal. He made a reference to your criticism. Your criticism of his work was more harsh. Both were completely professional and not personal, IMO. It's all good, bro.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 2:14 AM Matthew

Maybe it was a joke, but while reading his blog it sure didn't come across like that. Don't forget people, they invented the emoticon for a reason...

He does comment pretty quickly that it was a joke but he mentions that he's known Ayende for quite some time. If so, then it would be an inside joke and I'm surprised by this post.

Either way, I think Ayende is dead-on. I think Haack's post needs a little updating since most people won't be reading his later comment.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 2:24 AM Bevan Coleman

I also think he missed the point... is it really about usability when it makes it harder "for those who are just starting out and have trouble using Google"?

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 2:30 AM Joel Duvall

The title of your post was actually a little strong, in my opinion, when compared to what the content of your post actually was. It could be taken that the entire MVC framework is a case study in bad design when in reality you ment this specific API reference was poor. Maybe that is what he meant by blanket statement.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 2:36 AM josh

I didn't take either Oren's original post or Haack's response as anything but professional in their own style of writing. but i'm not personally involved. i'd figured the two would chat via email and figure something out.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 2:50 AM Haacked

Ayende, check your email. As I mentioned in my post, I will retract it since you were bothered by it. I meant it as a joke, but perhaps it was a bad joke. My apologies.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 2:51 AM PandaWood

I completely concur with you on this Ayende, calling your criticism a "blanket criticism" was border-line insulting and the reference to people who have "trouble using Google" was a tad over that same line. There was no real joke behind the curtain as I read it. If Phil Haack really had thick skin, he wouldn't have spent less time defending himself and more time discussing the design

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 3:01 AM Luke Q

Since you loose so much context from a written communication (body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc) I think its always a good idea to assume the other person didn't mean to cause any offense.

For example, the title of your post has "NOT" in caps. Is this for emphasis or were you conveying that you were angry? If so, how angry? Its too easy to read into these types of things if you're not careful...

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 4:41 AM Jim

I think Phil's response did the opposite than what Ayende suggests here. I think Phil's post should be seen as a compliment, not a slight. If some no nothing programmer wrote a blog criticizing the API, I don't think Phil would have came up with such a thorough explanation, much less post a link to the original blog.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 5:11 AM Phillip

Meh let Haack say what he wants. I still think the ASP.Net MVC Framework is crap. I think it's more important to blog about why developers shouldn't be using controls such as DataGrids, Labels, Panels etc on public facing sites.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 5:31 AM David

I respect you Oren, but frankly many of your posts come across as overly critical and snide. Something you might consider in the future.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 5:37 AM Sergio Pereira

If that was the only post I ever read from Phil I *might* take it the wrong way but, c'mon, thinking that Phil would write anything with malice towards Oren is just unreal. We are not talking about just two random bloggers here.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 6:51 AM Justice~!

Wow, I didn't realize everyone on the internet could be such powderkegs, waiting...TO EXPLODE!!!

Don't worry Oren, I still respect you and I know the fact I posted this publically means the world to you.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 6:55 AM P.J. Wilkins

With regard to Oren's original post (I haven't read this blog regularly before, so I don't know how applicable it is in general), I have to agree with David's comment above. To me, the wording implied that the writer's point was that the asp.net mvc team either don't know what the hell they're doing, or at least they've made lots of very poor decisions API-wise.

If I was Phil, and someone was using language like that regarding a project, and more importantly, a team that I'd been "in the trenches" with for months, I'd probably take it much more personally than he did.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 10:40 AM Peter Morris

"they invented the emoticon for a reason..."

So that American's can when to laugh?

:-P

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 11:41 AM Simone

I think that's exposing a problem with globalization: people from different cultures react to critics and raise issues in different ways.

Oren as most of the people I know from Israel and from that part of the world (also Islamic and Asian people) are much more direct when addressing issues.And this, coupled with the fact that English is not their first language, make them seem a bit rude.

Phil comes from the English/US culture, where things are more soft, everything is always "politically correct" and issues are never related to people (or team), but to facts. And they always try to defend themselves when someone raise the voice. It happened to me a lot of times in NZ: I'm from Italy, and I'm not English mother-tongue, so probably I might have seemed rude to NZ guys sometimes when I was saying out loud something. But it's a common thing you experience if you come and visit an Italian offices.


Both should think more about how they interact with different cultures.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 12:04 PM James L

This would have been better as an email or phone call I suspect.

I do agree about the lousy interface though.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 12:09 PM Nic Wise

I think @simone has a point. I had the same issue when working with a team of Russian developers - it didn't make sense until I went back to my (very old and out of date) Russian classes from school, and the aide of a very good translator, and realised that what they were saying in English was just a direct translation of what they were thinking in Russian.

Which is, of course, how I'd do it if I was going the other way. But I don't speak Russian, so I was just glad to be able to communicate with them at all!

It came across harsh in English, but it was perfectly grammatically correct in Russian. I believe German is very similar, but I'm not familiar enough with other languages to know about them (tho I'll talk to Simo about it this weekend :) ). It takes a lot of time - a LOT of time - get a language down to the point where you can express the subtle newances, especially if they are very different to your mother tongue.


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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 3:36 PM jdc

Wow. My reading comprehension skills must be really sub-par, because when I read that quote from Phil, it never even occurred to me that he was referring to Ayende when he talked about people who can barely use Google. I thought he was just mentioning the folks for whom they targeted that part of the interface - as a well thought-out explanation in response to an equally well thought-out criticism.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 4:10 PM Robert Porter

I am a dedicated reader of both your blog and Phil's, so please understand this is from that perspective.

Your post, particularly the title was what I would call inflamatory. Also I think you could have had an out of band discussion with the MVC folks before you made such a post publically.

You are certainly allowed to share your opinion, in fact I count on you and others to do so, but I don't think you were as careful as you stated you were and I don't think you took the necessary steps in advance of your post.

But I still like your Blog!

Cheers,

Bob Porter

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/7/2008 8:50 PM Guy Ellis

I don't think that the "blanket" referred to you in the "blanket of criticism" - the blanket means that there will be a number of people criticizing that code which anybody should expect for any code that they write. He just happened to link to your post as an example of one of the critiques about the code.

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# re: I still think that personal attacks are NOT cool 11/11/2008 4:07 AM Vijay Santhanam

Haaack the bone!

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