I don't remember the last time that a piece by Uncle Bob or Martin Fowler—and they're just two examples, I've seen quite a few more who are generally met with agreement every time they're posted—was heavily criticized or disagreed with here.
And when I do see disagreements, they tend to come from people who don't seem to have nearly as much experience as those guys do or who might have misinterpreted their point (much like how the idea of agile has turned into something that only reflects the manifesto tangentially, and accidentally at that) and who are, perhaps not coincidentally, likely to fall in the "programming is easy" camp.
And even then, "controversial in hacker news" is hardly representative of what's controversial in the field at large (which I also understand goes against my own first point).
> it turns out, its mostly not very controversial
I don't believe this until proven otherwise with actual data. Any programming concept on this planet eventually gets an article on the HN front page that argues for why that particular concept is really bad and then we are having a huge discussion about it.