First off, I didn't insult you by name right? Which means I didn't insult _you_ I insulted your ideologies. To me there are no kings or heroes to worship. If you get offended because I disagree with you then you're not intellectually honest and most likely would get offended no matter what I say.

Second, it depends on the audience, but I plan on purpose to alienate 1/3 of my audience when I write technical documents like this. I focus on alienating the 1/3 of the audience who are arrogant, obnoxious, and too blind to see that their beliefs and values are killing the industry.

I just don't want to work with them, especially if they can't take a joke. Surprisingly, this turns out to be a very small number of people in practice, and they're usually just pseudo-intellectual blowhards.

If you go through all my insults, they're aimed at the people who are screwing things up for the regular Joes trying to get things done. And _that_ is the entire purpose of the Mongrel2 project too.

I never said you insulted me. I quite enjoy your writing, and belong to the half of your audience who doesn't give a shit.

My point is that your style is very personal and confrontational. You usually start discussions by aggressively speaking out against programmers or certain types of programmers, and only after this move on to any specific work that they've done or their ideologies. What you're really trying to criticize is the work.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this, of course. But it probably sets an unnecessary upper bound on your readership.

Oh, well my appologies then, I was assuming you were offended (there's plenty of them :-)

Actually, quite the contrary. Even the people who hate that I insult them still read it...and then talk about it for days on end like they have no lives.

Zed,

I also belong to the ranks of people who don't get offended when you insult people. But I wonder what you gain from it. 1. How do you know that the people who do get offended are the same people you don't want to work with? 2. How do you know that ranting actually deters these people from using your products?

My point is similar to jpeterman's, but my focus is on how you know that you are actually setting and upper bound on your readership, and if you are, how do you know that you are benefitting?

"First off, I didn't insult you by name right? Which means I didn't insult _you_ I insulted your ideologies."

I speak for myself, not for the supposed audience you're alienating, but I simply do not like your tone. That doesn't mean i'm insulted or offended, but it simply means I don't like it when people feel the need to vent in such a harsh manner.

Having said that, I do respect you for putting your money where your mouth is.

Actually, I think that's his appeal. Too much of the tech writers are a little too generous on the tech they cover (MSDN magazine, etc).

What you need is someone with decent taste to say this sucks, that's cool, here's why.

That's my feeling exactly. Too often the manuals and documentation people read are a chore to get through because they're so boring. They're also passive aggressive because they're obviously saying their technology is better in some way, but they're trying to be nice. You read through and there's little lame attempts at being the next Oscar Wilde when really it'd be much better if they just came out and started a fight.

When I write my docs I want it to teach people how to use it, and not put them to sleep at the same time.

Let me clarify what I mean. Zed usually takes this approach: "Here is something that idiot programmers do; let me show you the right way."

Half his audience will read this and think, "Gee, I don't want to be an idiot--I should continue reading!". The other half will take it as an insult, or just find it to be in bad taste, and put the book down.

A good writer should be able to get across his message without insults.

A good writer entertains readers and makes them think while getting his point across. Boring writers try to not offend anyone.

Thats so true. When I wrote my book, most of my battles with O'Reilly was over 'toning down' of my content.

O'Reilly was great to work with but they were a bit worried about offending people. When the book released, it worked out great - people loved it.

Actually, he'd make a fantastic tag-team with _Why. It would be a little like Abbie Hoffman & G. Gordon Liddy on the same speaking tour. Not to say these guys are on analogous points of the political spectrum (couldn't care less) but that they have markedly different points of view and would have a very interesting antagonism.

I have no idea how those two would ever co-write a book though. I bet that would sell, however.

"In case you haven’t figured it out, this book will be fun and slightly obnoxious. That’s not intended to insult you, but just to keep you interested so that you want to read it."

I hope not. The surliness is part of the charm. It's sort of the "just get it done, ya meathead!" construction foreman method to learning on the job.