I can't believe the discussion about this article has devolved into a discussion about whether a particular writing style, which has been a witty and entertaining vehicle for argument for thousands of years, should be expunged from the programming community as if it were a pathology. A preference for civility is one thing, but an inability to distinguish between different pieces of writing according to their intent, effect, and value is another thing entirely. Naggum's target here is XML (a juggernaut) and the entire community behind it (another juggernaut,) not an individual poster. He isn't bullying anyone or singling anyone out personally. He also writes with a great deal of experience and insight into this particular problem, and his tone is very well-suited to communicate his experience and insight.
The programming community has its share, and maybe more than its share, of people who hurt the community more than help it because of how they treat other people, and also people who could learn to participate in a much more constructive way. The matter can't be oversimplified, though. There are no simple rules that can be applied. Sure, you could describe the post as aggressive, intolerant, and irritable. Most writing that can be described as aggressive, intolerant, and irritable could be improved by making it less so. Then again, most things described as "pungent" -- rotting garbage, my feet -- could be improved by making them less so, but not Camembert.
What you find "witty", I find boring. What is so interesting about dozens of ad hominem attacks? They're not even clever insults... just long adverbs (staggeringly) attached to playground names (idiot) and misogynistic, nonsensical analogies (rape).
Well, that's one way of reacting to it. Many people who found Christopher Hitchens delightfully witty decided he was no longer so witty when he became a neocon and started writing things they disagreed with. That only means they never appreciated him as a writer, but only as a cheerleader for their particular side.
misogynistic, nonsensical analogies (rape)
Being offended at horrible things treated lightly in a piece like this is the surest sign one has misplaced one's sense of humor.
"his tone is very well-suited to communicate his experience and insight"
I find this statement fascinating. I was unaware that a discussion of, for example, the breast-size preferences of American males was relevant to a criticism of XML. Indeed, I did not consider that discussion, or others in his rant, to be an effective method of communicating his experience and insight regarding XML.
Anything can become relevant through analogy. Attributes, explicit end-tags, character entities, and validation before processing are acknowledged as worthwhile features in the contexts SGML was originally created for, but the desire to have them in the contexts XML is intended for is compared to an infantile longing to receive the comforts a child receives from a mother, when one is no longer a child and is relating to someone who is not one's mother. Abstractly speaking, an expectation that develops in one context (a tiny infant nursing from his mother's swollen breast) may become ridiculous if it is transferred unmodified into a different context (a grown man who expects women to have breasts larger than his head.)
Analogy works best when it's short and pithy. The amount of text devoted to the 'analogy' should definitely not be allowed to grow several times longer than the exposition it's supposed to illustrate. By then things have gone long past the point where useful rhetorical glossing morphs into incontinent self-absorbed dithering.
The programming community has its share, and maybe more than its share, of people who hurt the community more than help it because of how they treat other people, and also people who could learn to participate in a much more constructive way. The matter can't be oversimplified, though. There are no simple rules that can be applied. Sure, you could describe the post as aggressive, intolerant, and irritable. Most writing that can be described as aggressive, intolerant, and irritable could be improved by making it less so. Then again, most things described as "pungent" -- rotting garbage, my feet -- could be improved by making them less so, but not Camembert.