I'm all for criticism that involves actual analysis and attempts to be constructive. That's not what I saw/see here.
"Show HN" posts are specifically for criticism because (a) the OP asks for it and (b) we can actually put our eyes/ears/fingers on the product in question. This is a Kickstarter page for a product that hasn't even shipped yet. Instead of "I hope they cover loops", we get "she is odd in front of a camera" and "too many alarm bells".
And BTW, I'm all for picking apart "insufferably pompous SV culture"–in fact, I'd love to make some spoof startup videos doing exactly that. That's just not what I'm seeing here.
No. The truth is that you're being overly defensive.
> I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine anything bad/wrong coming out of its existence.
So we should all make smiley faces and exclamation marks and ZOMG children will learn coding because "nothing bad can come out of its existence"?
> (a) the OP asks for it
Oh I'm sorry, I'll never criticise anything ever again if OP doesn't ask for it!
> (b) we can actually put our eyes/ears/fingers on the product in question.
Dude/Dudette, that is literally the Kickstarter model. Are you saying a page explaining things about the book, with a video is just there for fun? Maybe I should give every kickstarter some money because hey, nothing bad/wrong can come out of their existence and I'm not allowed to criticise it since I can't put my ears/fingers on the product in question.
> Instead of "I hope they cover loops", we get "she is odd in front of a camera" and "too many alarm bells".
It'll be a pretty boring Maths book if all they cover are integers, strings and variables.
And yes, she did look odd in front of the camera. And I'm allowed to say that in this comment. Because she created it and put it up on Kickstarter. You want universal acceptance and love? I got some bad news for you...
And btw, the video was actually bad. Sorry.
> And BTW, I'm all for picking apart "insufferably pompous SV culture"–in fact, I'd love to make some spoof startup videos doing exactly that. That's just not what I'm seeing here.
I see a lot of pompousness in this post too. Lets be reasonable. It's a freaking children's book. The author is a well established member of the development community and works for one of the most well known programming tutorial website. One can presume that they would have the time and money to start working on a book which has lots of drawings. People were writing books before Kickstarter existed you know.
But of course, how dare I criticise anything about those cute drawings. Think of the Children!
You're allowed to be a hater — much like you're allowed to walk around creepily breathing on people's necks — but it still makes your comments unpleasant and drags down the level of discourse here.
"Show HN" posts are specifically for criticism because (a) the OP asks for it and (b) we can actually put our eyes/ears/fingers on the product in question. This is a Kickstarter page for a product that hasn't even shipped yet. Instead of "I hope they cover loops", we get "she is odd in front of a camera" and "too many alarm bells".
And BTW, I'm all for picking apart "insufferably pompous SV culture"–in fact, I'd love to make some spoof startup videos doing exactly that. That's just not what I'm seeing here.