The article dedicates itself to critiquing the techniques, but spends no time that I can remember talking about the human beings and their feelings. That’s how I write professionally, and I’ve found it can really upset people who infer that critique of some thing is therefore critique of some person — even when no such inference is intended by the author.

> Did he really have to go on to flame everyone else to a crisp?

No one person is flamed to a crisp here, but some people’s mathematical works are absolutely set on fire. If this had been a critique about the people in geometric algebra, I never would have read it at all, because that’s not what interests me. Critiquing cargo-curled erroneous hearsay as invalid resonates strongly, especially with the focus on the math instead of the people.

As a newb, I learned a great deal about mathematics from reading this, but I still don’t know who any of the people involved are. Isn’t that the holy grail of professional critique: it’s about the work, not the worker?

Or, am I missing something where this article is personally attacking people rather rhan people’s work output?