It is scary (FEAR FEAR) to see opinions formed, and backed with vitriol, by fear that something different than what they are doing works better. Something you don't know that approaches the same problems as something you do know does not make the first thing bad. It does not justify lashing out at it saying "it is just [foo] and sucks so bad compared to [bar] and can never [scale|perform|manage|eat] enough to be used for [serious|difficult|real] things." Possibly this is true, but reacting that way out of fear certainly does not make it so.
The pattern emerges all over. It scares me. It also encourages me because it means that when a better way comes along most people won't realize it, and even if they do they will let themselves be riddled with fear of it changing things, so that those who are willing to try something before hating (fearing) it will have a big leg up. Wait, this happens all the time too!
Seriously, next time you are tempted to glance over something and immediately say "ah, it is [pigeon hole] and therefore crap." Maybe put aside your fear that someone, somewhere, has found a better way to do something and give it a real whirl.
Luckily, most people will read this, presume they are in the category of person who honestly evaluates things before hating them, and then go on their merry close-minded way =) I say luckily because that leaves more goodness for everyone who does stop and work through things.
Putting your head in the sand and ignoring new things, or attempting to will them out of existance, or convince everyone around you that they are bad so the whole flock has its head in the sand with you, because something conflicts with your status quo is certainly a time-tested way of dealing with change -- for a while.
Finding the opposites of abstract things can be a fun game. I think the opposite of fear may be curiosity.
writebacks...
Brian, I'm going to assume you're talking about my latest entry :) I'm not afraid of things, but I do find it quite annoying to see claims like "10x faster than Java". That claim is utterly retarded. It is comparing apples to oranges. It's in the same ballpark as the stupid arguments about which is faster: Java or C. The slashdotters have demonstrated time and again that 90% of them have never developed software, but are in fact sysadmins who get excited whenever the mention of Gentoo, MySQL, and PHP occur in the same paragraph.
Re eh?
Patrick -- Your article was the feather that tipped the scale =), It is lots and lots of things, less to do with Java and Ruby and frameworks and more to do with open source, app servers, standards, etc =)
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