Denigrating any subjective experience because it's "too direct" is bordering on passive aggressive. Every suggested edit you've made to the comment completely alters the meaning of the text: you're basically saying that if you're not looking to learn and completely disregard the veracity of your own experience in every statement you do, you're better off not saying anything at all.

It strikes me as exceedingly dishonest to pretend that you're genuinely interested in someone's opinion if you already know you strongly disagree with it, and it's by no means a requirement to lack an opinion to have a respectful debate. Telling someone that you believe they're wrong is not an insult.

People have subjective opinions and experiences, this does not necessarily make their statements true. This should be obvious and I don't see why it's the sender's responsibility to preface everything they say with that fact to avoid stepping on the toes of whoever reads it. Opinions don't kill debate, it furthers it.

> you're basically saying that if you're not looking to learn and completely disregard the veracity of your own experience in every statement you do, you're better off not saying anything at all.

That's really not what I'm trying to say at all. If I had to condense it down to one sentence it would be: "if there's a difference in opinion between two reasonable people, it's probably because you've had different experiences; you'll have a more productive discussion by finding out what they are than simply stating your opinions".

> It strikes me as exceedingly dishonest to pretend that you're genuinely interested in someone's opinion if you already know you strongly disagree with it, and it's by no means a requirement to lack an opinion to have a respectful debate. Telling someone that you believe they're wrong is not an insult.

If you're not interested in somebody's opinion, what value could there possibly be in having a discussion with them?

> If you're not interested in somebody's opinion, what value could there possibly be in having a discussion with them?

Not every comment on the Internet is an invitation to discussion, and the discussion is not exclusively between two people. A lot of comments are just responses about why someone disagrees or agrees with what was just said, which is allowed.

Is it OK if I am direct with you and say this is absurd and unhelpful?

OP’s post was clear and to the point. It was entirely focused on the content of their frustrating experience with Docker. And it wasn’t at all “adversarial”. They had a bad experience with software and are sharing it.

I’m glad they didn’t try to wrap it in softening language just in case someone might find their communication style “violent.” I hate this trend. I see so many comments like this in tech and honestly it’s mostly from people who have nothing to say or who become indignant if you say anything they disagree with.

I understand your concern and agree that I am being extremely direct. It's not out of spite. On the one hand, it comes from my frustration with what I as an engineer perceive to be wrong advice. It feels to me like OP is using Docker because he read a blog post about it somewhere, never seriously thought about alternatives, then stuck with it and now recommends it to others, repeating a cycle where software gets worse and worse. And on the other hand, being direct is more concise. We all have little time and I feel that to get a point across on the internet, one has to get it across quickly and succinctly. I have no problem with my views being criticised and I'll be happy to concede where I was wrong if someone makes a clear and harsh point. But either way, I'm sorry if I offended you in particular or others who did not comment; It was not my intention. Having read this thread, I think much of the difference of opinion comes from different contexts. People who like Docker often seem to be working in larger teams, which is totally fine and they're probably right to use Docker. I just couldn't help but disagree with a statement that I felt pertains to an area I work in, which is small SaaS of tiny teams with usually no scalability requirements.

I get where you're coming from and you didn't offend me at all. I'd just been looking at the top comments of a bunch of HN threads and thinking "why does this place seem so unfriendly". Your comment isn't anywhere close to being the worst, it just happened to be the one I responded to.

And being direct isn't a bad thing either, my point here wasn't "don't be direct or concise, you'll offend people" but "assuming everyone here is reasonable, disagreements are likely due to differences in experience and you'll have a more productive discussion by figuring out the differences than simply stating opinions".

You are making judgments about OP using Docker. But from my point of view you are a true pain to work with because you do not containerise your work. Anytime I'd have to work with one of your creations I'd have to go figure what you are using, set it up and make sure it works. That's a waste of time and you are promoting that very fact because you were unable to figure any usage for it. I doubt OP has only "read some blog post about it somehwere" It's literally wide in usage by a lot of companies. "People who like Docker often seem to be working in larger teams, which is totally fine and they're probably right to use Docker." -> it's actually about that, it is useful is scaling that's true, but it's also very useful just to share the env your software should work with. And I'd dare to say that giving a Dockerfile is now standard practice.

You're judging my code without ever having seen it, nor knowing the context of my projects. You won't have to work with my creations because as I explained my projects usually involve just me. As I also explained above, i think Docker can make sense in companies. And re "standard practice", I like to make decisions on what's best for each project, not by dogma.

What if you want to run the code on a different architecture? In that case isn't it better to document which "pip install" etc. you have to perform to get it running? And from there do you really still need docker?

> I'm not trying to pick on you personally here but this comment, like many I see on HN, seems overly adversarial.

Ironically I find the first comment non-adversarial and this comment overly-adversarial, but maybe that’s just me.

People are allowed to disagree and share their own experiences, and OP didn’t say anything nasty about anyone. I would prefer a space where people share their honest experiences with reasoning over one where everything has to be coated in sugar to make it digestible. And I’m sure the author of the post can handle hearing someone else’s differing opinion, it’s a discussion forum after all - not a blind agreement forum.

I think I’m fine with the commenter’s style of writing.

Ironically, your proposal would add an extra layer of indirection to their comment.

In its current form it is very clear that it is their opinion.

I think using "I" statements and referring to their own experience makes the comments subjective. They may be expressing a strong opinion, but they aren't stating it as objective truth.

> If we all wrote like this (and I'm certainly not perfect myself), HN could be a much friendlier, more welcoming place.

This is a well-intentioned thought but I'm not sure it actually makes sense. The things that make or detract from HN being a friendly and welcoming place have a lot to do with its size and heterogeneity -- ideology included. You're trying to neuter the disagreement and rephrase it in terms of a question. That's not always a bad thing, but in some cases you really do just disagree. If that's going to be the case, why not be upfront about it, so long as you can be civil? (GP's point does seem to be phrased in a pretty civil manner IMO)