Dealing with rudeness
"Much of what looks like rudeness in hacker circles is not intended to give offense. Rather, it's the product of the direct, cut-through-the-bullshit communications style that is natural to people who are more concerned about solving problems than making others feel warm and fuzzy." - Eric Raymond
http://catb.org./~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#keepcool
http://yapceurope.lv/ye2011/talk/3316
Working at cPanel on cperl, B::C (the perl-compiler), parrot, B::Generate, cygwin perl and more guts, keeping the system alive.
Ah, ESR--king of the false dilemma.
Note that people such as Larry and Tim Bunce are very good at solving problems without making other people feel small.
That very passage where ESR excuses assholery and pretending that other humans don't have feelings is one of the reasons I want to write a new version of that document.
I've long given up ESR's document for http://mikeash.com/getting_answers.html
My opinion is if it looks like rudeness, it is. It doesn't mean the person is wrong, just means they're rude. Never makes me feel very welcome in certain forums, so I avoid those technologies.