A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People

Trotting out absolute statements does no one any good. I could just as easily spin this on its head and say that it feels socially safe to always show blind enthusiasm for the latest trend lest you be labelled a "hater".

It feels like we're just redefining critic to be synonymous with cynic. There's no reason that you can't simultaneously be both fan and a critic of X.

That said, it's still important to take the time to sing the praises of something you like. If Ebert had spent all his time talking down bad films, reading his columns would have been painful drudgery (see also: CinemaSins, Nostalgia Critic, and similar attempts at film-criticism-by-cynicism). A good critic wants their target to succeed, and celebrates when that happens.

If I’m doing the review, I try to find at least one or two items to call out as great ideas/moves. Even if it’s as simple as refactoring a minor pain point.

If I’m being reviewed I always make sure to thank/compliment comments that either suggest something I genuinely didn’t consider or catch a dumb move that isn’t wrong but would be a minor pain point in the future.

As you note, code reviews can be largely “negative feedback” systems, and I find encouraging even a small amount of positivity in the process keeps it from becoming soul sucking

There are many such people already, there are also many haters, and many people in the middle. This diversity is how humanity managed to get this far, we need all of them.

The irony here is present but better interpreted as the forum structure being biased towards criticism.

So actually putting positive comments in the code review isn’t really much appreciated.

I gained this habit and now for me, a comment is a suggestion of improvement, I deliver praise out-of-band.

It's a horrible practice with adverse incentives, and one of the reasons I'm glad I no longer work there

(and easily gameable, anyways - people would just DM each other patches they were unsure of, before submitting an actual CR)

And that explains 90% of all the criticism that has ever been given.

If you listen to interviees with great writers, musicians, painters or actors you will often find it surprising when they tell you which other arrists they like. That is because the people making the stuff often have a much more open mind about what constitutes interesting and/or good writing, music, paintings or acting.

To me as an practitioner it feels at time that these "enthusiastic consumer critics" are incredibly bitter about not being able to live from the art they love like the ones they critique, so they carve out their niche and give themselves self-worth by playing a strong role in the field they love.

With good critics this love is the predominant message, with bad critics it is the bitterness.

"Why did you not handle $situation" -> "how does this code handle $situation?"

"You shouldn't do $thing" -> "$thing has sharp edges, see $link-to-more-info. The general approach used in the code base is to $alternative."

And this just made me realize why I don’t like HN very much. We live in a bizarre state of mind here with a common interest of creation and furtherance, but simultaneously inside the belly of the beast, it is a forum of unconditional criticism.

It’s in good faith obviously. People see an idea and critique it to the edge of existence with the desire help or further an idea; but it becomes a tick/tock that pulls the original idea apart beyond recognition.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything productive come out of the comments on HN, ever. It’s just a slew of people who say you can always do better after taking a long look at your idea, assuming your intended goal is perfection.

The irony is present because of the poster. It is explained by the contents of the post, not by the thread order in which it resides.

:) This is nice closure for engaging less though, sincerely. I see I’ve fallen victim to this mindset with this very comment, in its own irony.

The reality of military operations, which Hemingway himself probably knew having served himself (though maybe the situation has changed as I can't claim familiarity with the specifics of how it worked over a century ago), is that the biggest critic of any unit involved in a battle post-battle is the unit itself. Every action is always followed by an after-action review, in which you go over what went well, what went wrong, what you should continue, and what you should change. It's neither unrelentingly positive nor negative. It's honest.

But for whatever reason, much of the creative class seems to think anyone who isn't able to do something themselves is universally unqualified to comment on the work of others. Plenty of rather obvious examples show this to be ridiculous. The top coaches and trainers throughout history were rarely great athletes themselves.

I like the tightly curated communities of discord, but that comes with its own obvious problems. I don’t have a great answer unfortunately.

Which is perhaps a hint that I ask for the impossible, lol.