Sorry, but I have a right to an emotional reaction to your content and a right to describe it, especially if the reaction is grounded in objective technical reality. I suspect that younger people have this idea that online descriptions of emotional reactions are fictional and purposely crafted for effect -- mostly having to do with emotional aggression. It's true that sometimes "passion" over a subject is used as a pretext for such aggression. That doesn't mean that it's always true, however. In some cases, it's honesty.
That said, "arrrgh" reactions in a technical discipline often indicate a frustrating failure of outreach, education, or communication. I learned things from reading tptacek's review. Maybe he could supervise the ghost-writing of his own undoubtedly excellent book?
(1) - I was riding the bus and this young man had his sneakers tied to the back of his backpack, the soles of which he was pressing into my chest. I tried discretely hinting to him by pressing back, but he was oblivious, so I brought this to his attention.
I was amazed that his first priority wasn't to apologize or help me out, rather it was that I recognize that he didn't mean any harm. Be correct first, then worry about your own ego second.
> I have a right to an emotional reaction to your content and a right to describe it, especially if the reaction is grounded in objective technical reality
... because while you have rights, being a person who participates in a civilized society means you also have responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities is to interact with people in ways that are appropriate to the situation.
And "appropriate to the situation" changes depending on the nature of the situation. The less serious the situation, the less appropriate a volcanic reaction becomes. Nobody's going to disapprove of you if you start screaming at an airline pilot who you see snorting coke on his way to the plane. But lots of people will disapprove of you if you lay down the same reaction on some poor kid behind the counter at McDonald's because he forgot your French fries.
In the case of this review, I would say tptacek's tone is appropriate, because security is Serious Business (as we should all know, especially after last week); getting it wrong can result in people getting robbed or even killed. So if you're going to put yourself forward as a teacher of crypto, and you're teaching people things that aren't true, you're doing real damage and should be glad a good yelling-at is the worst punishment you have to suffer. But that doesn't mean that the same tone would be appropriate if taken with the kid on the bus, because "annoyingly oblivious" is a long chalk from "could get people killed."
To me, complaints about tone are for critiques that contain phrases like "fucking idiot" and "worthless waste of space" and other such direct insults or attacks.
If something legitimately makes you stop and stare with your mouth hanging open, it is OK to say "this statement made me stop and stare with my mouth hanging open." Phrases like "I am not making this up" are reasonable shortcuts to expressing that sentiment.
Could Mr. Ptacek's review have been worded more kindly? Of course. Do I care? Not at all. It was nice enough. It concentrated on technical flaws rather than personal attacks. It was informative and useful. The tone was just fine.
It's okay if you are writing a story about your personal reactions.
It's irrelevant if you are writing a serious critique, which should be about the content, not about your emotional response to it (assuming it is a critique of an informative work -- obviously, if you are critiquing something as a work of art intended to inspire emotional responses, writing about your response as some relevance.)
It's possible to blend the first kind of story with the second kind of critique, but you have to recognize the different roles of each, do it deliberately, and be exceptionally skilled (the set of people who can do this and produce something worth reading is a proper subset of the intersection of the sets of those who can write entertaining personal stories and those who can write valuable straight critiques.)
That being said, tptacek's review seems pretty focussed on substantive critique with very minimal emotional distractions, so while I disagree with the categorical defense of the individual statements at issue as being appropriate to a straight critique of an informative work, I also think that the charge that the tone was inappropriate and a barrier to reading is overblown considering the fairly minimal level at which distracting emotional descriptions are present in the review.
At 49, I see the exact opposite. Members of my generation tended to exhibit more tact and decorum. The urge to dress like a hobo, swear all the time, and flame everyone in sight is a classic overcompensation for years of helicopter parenting which forbade all of these things.
"In some cases, it's honesty."
In others, it's honesty used as a pretext for acting out.
Note I also make this observation.
Also note that I am specifically pointing out reactions to criticism. The other changes in decorum have been noted by previous generations since at least the 1800s. Waltzing was once a lascivious corrosive to society's morals.
Also: we are likely less than 4 years apart in age. I could do with more decorum, as I've been learning over the past 4 years.
This is presuming that such fear is always the input to a conscious decision. That doesn't fit my observations of human nature. Power relationships always have some bearing on the nature of an interaction, so what you're saying is comparable to telling an aquatic species that they're wet.
Also, going by what you say, you should have more respect for those who tell truth to power, or tell their more famous/more highly regarded colleagues the plain truth. Perhaps tptacek should be more humble because he's more famous, but if it comes to the choice of him being frustrated by widespread crypto cluelessness or by a desire to dominate others, I think the former makes far more sense.
Regarding tptacek, I suspect that if he had sent this to the author, or posted it as a formal review, I suspect he would have toned down the description of his reactions. I'm not sure where this review came from, but my impression is that he did not think of it as a published review that the author would see. Certainly doing such would be advisable, as people are more receptive to criticism that way.
Perhaps I am wrong regarding how tptacek would have responded had he known the review would be, essentially, published. But I know I phrase things differently in such situations.
A better way of apologizing is actually apologizing. The young man's reaction was more like exasperation that I should have been put out.
My impression is that the comment was/is a comment on social media. My comment was written in that context.
Why hurt someone when you can avoid it?
Having said that: had I written the "review" as an actual "review", and not as an oversized HN comment that I had to make a Gist out of to get it onto the site, I would have written it more carefully.
My hypothesis is that people expect text that has no obvious signs of being an Internet comment to use the more 'serious' language and this case (an Internet comment that is a bit longer than usual) is being classified wrongly as a result.
That said, it's funny that most these rants aren't ad hominem, unlike some of the "formatted" vitriol which attacks you without really seeming to do so.
Someone should watch EEVBLOG on Youtube, Dave Jones does reviews and teardowns of electronics.
There was a rant over PICKit3 where he voiced his frustrations with the new device (that wasn't better than the old one, and took out nice features, replaced things that worked perfectly with things that were sort of dumb) which triggered Microchip to answer with a funny video their own.
Your tale about the boy ... Arrrghh ! I don't want to go off topic, but man, I think nothing gets diluted more than values each year.. Well, except shares of a startup once VC's get in.
The "I am not making this up" thing came in the context of recommending ASN.1 for instance. If that were a chess match commentary, this is where the scorekeeper would have put a "??" after the move to note the shock.
And note what tptacek's comment was not: It wasn't a bunch of personal attacks, or swearing. Some of the commentary was "more than professional", to be sure, but that's exactly the kind of commentary you should hope to get in highly-demanding, highly-selective fields.
You want to know what a perfect book review would look like in the Navy's nuclear propulsion program? It would be this: "No deficiencies noted."
I agree that it wasn't especially bad, it could just be worded a bit better to spare feelings.
Tptacek could have chosen to say that differently, but it does add value as written. I have no idea what ASN.1 is; simply telling me that the book contains that string doesn't mean anything to me. Telling me that it was a stupid thing to say doesn't teach me about ASN.1 or crypto, but it does teach me about the book.
