 Advice for reacting to critical posts
I'm posting this message because what's kept me around here all these years is
the love of being helpful on a subject I know a lot about (and sometimes of
looking smart, but hopefully more about being helpful).
Sometimes, there's just no nice and fuzzy way to respond with advice to
something one thinks is wrong, and in the past, I've often chosen to hedge and
hint rather than confront directly. While that's not very threatening, it
also doesn't always communicate much information or express the strength of my
opinion or my confidence in my answer.
Anyway, the following are my suggestions to people who are taken aback by a
reply from me or anyone more direct (and possibly more informative) than I who
also posts and replies on this group.
1. Don't take personal offense when someone questions one of your technical
opinions, practices, or code samples.
2. If you disagree with the respondent on a technical level, express your
disagreement, and do so on a technical level. If you're right, perhaps he/she
will be convinced, perhaps not. That's fine.
3. The respondent is probably not 100% right, and neither are you.
4. It is helpful to have a dialog, and have each participant and lurker arrive
at their own best opinions and conclusions after a proper and dispassionate
consideration of all available opinions and measurements. It's not terribly
important for some "more correct" person to "win" some argument or score some
rhetoric points.
5. It's OK to let a thread fizzle after all points have been expressed and no
agreement has been reached.
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