I've explained why I think those are bad takes. Perhaps you are projecting on me something because you don't like my opinion. Also asking me to take a step back because you don't like my opinion is really against the spirit of why we are here on HN. People are allowed to express their views in comments as long as it's respectful. I think I articulated my points in strong but fair way and didn't say anything in particular about the author which makes it personal. However, you've made it now personal by accusing me of something unfounded without any proof. Perhaps you should take a step back and reflect on your own conduct.

I'm a fan of Hanselman but I think I get the gist of what you're saying. The post has an air of 'let's not forget about these strange specimens' when, like you, I'm under the opinion that the type of person he describes in the post are the norm.

Scott is a fantastic teacher, I've learned a lot from listening to him and his podcasts. But at the same time, being in his position requires one to stay on the bleeding edge in some cases, to be able to teach newcomers emerging technologies and explain new features in Microsoft tech like ASP and C#.

When you're surrounded by tech bloggers, social media and the like all day, I expect it to shape your view of what the wider development community actually looks like - even if you're in it. As you say, I feel the vast majority of us just go to work, go home then carry on with our lives. Perhaps pop our head over the fence one in a while if something truly earthshattering is happening.

Hanselman did and does outreach for years, he wouldn't have kept that job if he were condescending the whole time.

You’re accusing the comment author of something they didn’t commit. How perceiving condescension in a given paragraph of text is having “a dislike of the author” and “projecting”? If you didn’t detect something that somebody else felt, how does that invalidate somebody else’s opinions or feelings?

I like Hanselman but also think he's off base here. Some of that 99% are probably as he describes, but plenty are working on cool stuff with the latest tech, but just aren't into social media or conferences.

This misunderstanding explains the animosity in the comments.

Somehow using older tech is being conflated with being a lesser developer, and not being “cool”, when that’s kind of the opposite of the point of the post.

It's bizarre to suggest not going to conferences or keeping a blog means you're stuck on VB6 (released in 1998, 14 years before the post was written). It doesn't not mean that, either. The two things are unrelated to each other.

Scott Hanselman is projecting the world view conference-goers and blog-posters onto everyone else. He is obsessed with modernity, so everyone else must be using stable technology; he worries that his bleeding-edge tools are problems in need of a solution, so everyone else must be producing. In reality, any given 99% of developers is going to be using a diverse and varied mess of different technologies of varying maturity levels.

I don't think it's animosity at being called a lesser developer, but rather a baffled sense of insult at the claim that 99% of any group can be homogenous enough to teach lessons. Imagine a car enthusiast who drives a Porsche 911 writing the same article about the "dark 99%" who drive proven vehicles like a Toyota Camry (sensible passenger car) or a Mack Titan (gigantic truck used for pulling 200 tonne road trains) and are out there transporting. It's just a really weird claim to make given that the differences between his 1% and absolutely everyone else are dwarfed by the massive internal differences within that 99%.

> Scott Hanselman is projecting the world view conference-goers and blog-posters onto everyone else. He is obsessed with modernity

Promoting adoption of the latest thing is the job of marketing, and his job for the past decade-or-more falls squarely into that category.

The car enthusiast (or amateur race driver) is actually a pretty good analogy. Most people out there, including the Toyota and the mining truck driver, are likely not into the details of car construction, engines, and may not be up-to-date with the latest fuel injection tech that can give a 12% performance boost at high RPMs. And that’s totally ok and expected - they are using the vehicle as a tool to get jobs done. They might know enough to recognize a problem and know what model they want, but not get lost in details.

The people who go to car meetups and follow all the engineering and racing teams will be much closer to modern tech. Because it requires them to know about the latest developments in order to stay in the conversation.

What I disagree with is the % - it’s more like 90/10 instead, and most commenters here are probably in the 10% just for being on HN.

I would actually expect that the majority of people working on cool stuff are Dark Matter.

Working at your limit leaves little room for signaling games, and much less desire for them.

Ok, the GP may be over the top with their reaction, but the tone of condescension is definitely there. Just one example:

> Or they are just totally chilling and punching out at 5:01pm, but I like to think they are producing

...because everyone knows that you can't be productive during normal business hours, right?

Probably some rationalization going on there: "those 5:01 devs might be productive, but, we who burn the midnight oil blogging about exciting new web frameworks are the REAL devs."

FWIW I also found it very condescending.

I found it funny.

"Guys, did you know there are developers who are just developers and don't jump on the self-promotion-and-conference-speaker-train out of actually-writing-codeville at the first opportunity?! Shockingly, such people exist! They might—and you'll want to sit down for this—even not be bad at their jobs!"

The article wasn't entirely condescending - sometimes it was patronizing instead.