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Considering Harmful: Considered Stupid

I get it, "X considered harmful" is a nice meme. It has a big name behind it, every nerd worth its salt knows where it comes from, and for once it does not immediately reek of bad grammar.

That does not mean that just because you think something might be bad sometimes, you have to slap "considered harmful" at the end of it and write a blag post about it; most of the time, that just makes you look like a pompous ass. It will not get you published in the Communications of the ACM–that would require proper research–, and all you do is pollute the Web a little bit more, bringing up your inane ramblings when someone looks for real information on X.

So please, when you have to criticise something, stop thinking in headlines. Maybe "X may corrupt the heap", "X can make your source repository inconsistent", or "X may be trying to abduct your children in a white van with Ice Cream smeared on the sides" would make a better match for what you are trying to say.

By Shadowdancer, 2010-08-01, 16:55; permalink;
Last updated at 2010-08-01, 16:56 by Shadowdancer