Don't.

It is a free world out there and there's a lot of competing frameworks and languages. I seriously doubt any framework or language designer sets out to have "more women in the room" and neither should they.

DHH made his code available for anyone else to use if they wanted to. That doesn't mean he abdicated his values or thought process to to what the rest of the world dictates.

He is not an elected leader, who you expect to at least pretend to share your values. He happens to occupy a leadership position because he contributes code. Contributing code shouldn't have to imply political correctness in thought and speech.

I think all these complainants should really walk away from Rails (vs blog about it or whine about it day after day after day ) if they are so offended that DHH (or other people) don't share their prejudices on how the world should think.

Just. Walk. Away.

And how many people will do that (as compared to running a torches and pitchforks type campaign on blogs and twitter)?

Not many I would think.

And how much difference would it make to Rails if they did walk away? I have no idea though I think, maybe not much.

All this looks increasingly like a storm in a teacup.

Clients want to hear "your site is built on a platform that is managed by a friendly, responsive team, with a long history, that is dedicated to recruiting an ever-growing, diverse community of developers and designers who can be hired to maintain your site over the next decade". Anything else is poison.

Yeah, nobody is forcing the Rails community to be polite. It's an open-source project. Nobody is going to get fired. But it's up to the community to decide how big it's going to be at equilibrium, and whether or not it will contain any customers who have money.

""if the Rails community behaves too erratically for your taste, you can just walk away" is not a sentence I can afford to say to a prospective client who wants a website."

Fair Enough. But

(a)no Open Source community in the world has any guarantee on not "behaving erratically" in the future. All OS guarantees is that if the community goes in a direction different from what you think appropriate, you still have the code. So your client still only has that to fall back on in the ultimate analysis.

(b)"Clients want to hear "your site is built on a platform that is managed by a friendly, responsive team, with a long history, that is dedicated to recruiting an ever-growing, diverse community of developers and designers who can be recruited to maintain your site over the next decade".

I agree. But it is not necessarily the project founders concern that your clients hear what you want them to hear. he could just be sharing some code with no worries about what anyone says or does.

(c) Just to be clear, I speak for me, not "the community".

I just think it is unfair of people to demand that the presenter apologize just beacuse some people chose to be "offended". To me, this line of argument is similair to those put forward aginats the Mohammed Cartoons.

I also think it is unfair of people to project their notions of what "leadership" should be on to DHH and then complain he doesn't meet those standards. This is an Open Source project. If you are dissatisfied with the leadership, step up and lead.

Fwiw, I don't think the presentation was a very cool one. I just support the presenters right to make his presentation in any manner he see fit (and the audience's right to walk away ). I am just wary of some claims of moral superiority.

What do you think that process would look like in its first few days, if not like this?

"Fuck You."

I think that captures a certain something about the culture, doesn't it?

"Fuck You."

"

Paraphrasing is a dangerous art. What I am really saying (vs your paraphrase claims I said) is "If you don't like X , that is fine. If you want to express your thoughts , that is fine. If you don't want to work on Rails, that is fine too.

What is not fine is you expecting me (or anyone else) to think the way you do and say only things you like to hear just because of your feelings are offended. Being offended is your privilege. How much I should care about that is mine."

That is a bit more nuanced than" Fuck You", but if you insist on twisting my words to hear it that way, <shrug>

What is there about "Fuck You" that you don't like? Is it that you would prefer to say the same thing more politely?

Well Ok but "Fuck you " wasn't what I said. If you were talking about DHH's old slide (or something like that ) that's fine.

"What is there about "Fuck You" that you don't like? "

I don't have a like or dislike for "Fuck you". Sometimes the phrase is appropriate, sometimes not.

" Is it that you would prefer to say the same thing more politely?"

No. If I want to say "Fuck You" I'll probably say "Fuck You" (or equivalent). Again no particular like or dislike for one way over another.

When you said "so what you seem to be saying, is, .. "Fuck You" "

I assumed you were paraphrasing what I said. And since that was not what I said, I thought it might help to clarify.

That said, I can't help it if you collapse all arguments you don't like into "Fuck You".

Checking my history on HN, I find yours is the only argument that I have summarized as "Fuck You." Let me know if you find another I have forgotten.

EDIT:

In the mean time, no you didn't say those words. I heard them. I suggest that others heard those words when reviewing the various non-pologies flying around the blogosphere over this tempest-in-a-teapot.

As you (and Martin Fowler) put it, it's entirely up to you whether you care about the feelings of the people who perceive themselves as unwelcome or marginalized or uncomfortable within the Rails Community. I'm not saying you're a bad person for putting forth your opinion.

heh! (a) what you did historically is of no relevance to what you are doing now (b)even if true, that still doesn't make your collapsing my argument into "Fuck You" correct paraphrasing.

I made it clear in the original argument and then again in response to your (inaccurate imo), paraphrase that I was saying something other than "Fuck You!".

What I said was

"If you don't like X , that is fine. If you want to express your thoughts , that is fine. If you don't want to work on Rails, that is fine too.

What is not fine is you expecting me (or anyone else) to think the way you do and say only things you like to hear just because of your feelings are offended. Being offended is your privilege. How much I should care about that is mine."

If you are still hearing that as "Fuck You", it may be because you choose to collapse it to "Fuck You I can't help it. " It's just too bad.

EDIT (responding to raganwald's edit where he said)

"In the mean time, no you didn't say those words. I heard them"

yes that is what I thought as well. My suggestion is that you "check your hearing" because "Fuck you" is not what I said.

" I suggest that others heard those words when reviewing the various non-pologies flying around the blogosphere over this tempest-in-a-teapot."

Yes I never refuted that. My point is that DHH doesn't necessarily care about what other people "hear".

When what people "hear" is completely disconnected form what was said, I don't care either.

"As you (and Martin Fowler) put it, it's entirely up to you whether you care about the feelings of the people who perceive themselves as unwelcome or marginalized or uncomfortable within the Rails Community."

Exactly. Id' rather focus on writing code and making my chosen framework or language better for my purposes, than worry too much about what every possible person "out there", "hears".

Especially if I don't set out to "build a community" and am just sharing some code I found useful.

"I'm not saying you're a bad person for putting forth your opinion."

I didn't "hear" it that way ;-)

And even if you do say so, it doesn't make me a bad person. So it is quite all right.

...Thinking...

You can't please everyone, and if you don't like something, don't use it.

The salient difference to me is that saying "Fuck You" about something technical--like composite primary keys--is very different than saying "Fuck You" about someone's comfort level in my community.

I personally applaud Rails being opinionated about the former but deplore persons having the same opinionated approach to the latter circumstance.