Most of what you have to say here I find myself agreeing with with a smile and nod. But I wish you would just let this one go. He may not be the easiest person in the world to argue with, but his work and that book specifically are excellent. I also emailed him thanking him for sharing his work and got a prompt, sincere reply. I've been to your site and seen your thorough and organized postings on freelancing and I've read each one. And not having sent a thank you via email( my apologies), here's an honest one now;
Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge in an articulate and interesting way. It helps the late bloomers among us find our path.
That being said I just want to scream when I log on and the first comment on this post is pure snark from someone who should seemingly be above that. C'mon man, for some who is so clearly motivated by empathy and understanding in the comments they leave here I would hope you could just let. shit. go.
It's something that bothers me because Zed is actively out to destroy people at times and anybody that criticizes Zed or his work can expect being on the receiving end of a rant that would make you blush from your ears to your toes, and would make you wonder if you shouldn't have used an alias all along instead of your real name online.
So, far from snark it is an expression of frustration that Zed gets to play mr. Hyde on one day and mr. Jekkyl the next, and that he apparently is encouraged in this.
Check out his motivation for writing the book that this email is about, he wrote it to get back at someone who made a living from his python book and gave it away for free because of that.
I'm only actively against you because you are consistently obsessed with me, the things I write, and "proving" me wrong. You have some obvious hidden agenda that I can't grasp, and I absolutely hate trolls with a hidden agenda.
I treat nice people very well and love them. The world needs more nice people, and ones who are actually nice.
You however are not nice. You may use nice words, but your actions (like posting a billion times on anything about me) make you a complete and total jerk.
I doubt he is trolling. I think you annoyed him once, that colored his view of you, and now he evaluates your actions in that context and acts accordingly. Somewhat irrational, but that's how people are.
Who does he have the power to destroy? It's maybe regrettable that he throws around words as freely as he does, but whatever he says, he consistently creates new and useful things.
Given a choice between him continuing as before and disappearing completely, I'd prefer he stick around.
That's a pretty selfish but understandable point of view, I'm not saying that he should disappear completely or continue as before though, that's a false dichotomy, there is a third, and arguably better alternative.
Personally I'd like him to understand that not everybody that disagrees with him is out to get him and to become more civil in his online dialogue.
In the end the person he's damaging the most is himself, which is his good right of course, but I think that with very little work on his part that he could amaze us all by being both productive and an easy person to get along with.
I've gotten quite a bit of feedback that Zed in person is the nicest guy which really makes me wonder why he seems to expend so much energy by being nasty to people online.
I think you're damaging yourself with these snide remarks. Your comments are nasty in themselves but you're hiding it under the pretense of trying to improve zed.
I was only saying that Zed does more good than harm. In fact, I don't see him doing any harm (except possibly, as you point out, to himself) unless you're saying that we suffer by not having an easy-going Zed to talk with late into the evening.
This isn't a workplace; you're not forced to interact with Zed. Either you decide it's worth the potential grief, or you decide it's not. I don't understand what your personal stake in his behavior is.
Maybe because people like you run around butthurt and drag your bullshit into unrelated areas on HN? You'll also note that while Zed stands up for himself, I don't see him posting links to his site on HN.
Protip: grow up and stay the hell out of zed related threads if you don't like them.
The full text of Dive into Python is available online, for free. And he refuses to update it, so I wouldn't say this guy's living depends on that book.
Let. It. Go.
Is Zed replying to every single thread about your work? Not that I've seen.
This ongoing "conversation" between Zed and Jaques reminds me a bit of The Fountainhead. I won't be so obvious as so say who I think is Howard Roarke and who I think is Ellsworth Toohey, I guess :)
Dunno, Zed has been extremely nice and patient with me in our limited online interactions. I've read his "angry" blogs, but these seemed like a jokey persona. He's really rather pleasant.
