Evan Martin (evan) wrote in evan_tech,
Evan Martin
evan
evan_tech

on being cranky

Sometimes, people are wrong about something and it annoys me: "Tagging is the future," they'll say, "your explicit categorization systems are so last year." I'll see this and feel compelled to disagree and attempt to correct, or at least poke fun, or at least grumble privately with sarcastic comments, or at least misrepresent their argument like I just did above.

But other times, people are wrong about something -- "My IDE is so cool! I can't imagine how anyone can be productive without it." -- and I just think: "Hmph. They're wrong. Ah well, their loss."

I really wonder what it is that distinguishes category A from category B. I've long looked for a pattern but haven't found one. The obvious ideas don't seem to hold: it doesn't appear to have anything to do with my knowledge of the domain, nor my investment into the general area.

Maybe somedays I'm just more cranky than others. It probably doesn't help that pretty much all of the tech role models are famously cranky about pretty much everything.

I think if I was more conscious of this behavior, I'd try to always be the first sort of A around people I respect and B around everyone else. Or maybe just B all the time.
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