The rules of diplomatic debate apply just as much to code as they do to anything else. I'm going to try to identify what separates good debate from bad debate, and share specific tactics for keeping these arguments evidence-based, respectful, and drama-free.

1. How to argue
about JavaScript

2. How not to argue about semicolons

3. Our arguments
should be purposeful.

4. ideal: scientific research

5. reality: political debate

6. “In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a
really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they
actually change their minds and you never hear that old view
from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as
it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes
painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time
something like that happened in politics or religion.”
Carl Sagan (1987)

7. “Who the hell are you?”

8. No one of consequence.

9. “Where do you get off
censoring me, you fascist?”

10. I don’t.

11. Motives for having
a code argument:

12. to troll

13. to feel awesome
about yourself

14. to persuade others
to your way of thinking

15. to understand
the subject better

17. An argument has three goals.

18. Goal 1:
It should produce
a wise agreement, if possible.

19. Goal 2:
It should be efficient.

20. Goal 3:
It should not damage
the relationship between parties.

21. Tactics for arguments:

22. Tactic 1:
Separate the people from the problem.

23. bad:
the objective nature of the problem
how humans feel about the problem

24. bad:
the objective nature of the problem
how humans feel about the problem

25. good:
the objective nature of the problem
how humans feel about the problem

26. the original ticket:

27. response from Jacob Thornton (@fat):

28. comments one and two:

29. comment three:

30. comment four:

31. (this is why you should be nice)

32. Tactic 2:
Focus on interests, not positions.

33. Tactic 3:
Invent options for mutual gain.

34. Tactic 4:
Insist on objective criteria.

35. (standards)

36. (benchmarks)

37. THE SELECTOR WARS

42. “So what should I do?”

43. How to think:

44. Retain a willingness
to be convinced

45. Imagine where others
are coming from

46. Account for your own taste

47. Account for your own emotions

48. John Resig
“I learned some things about jQuery today…”

49. Recognize derails as they happen

50. Ahead:
An inventory of the discussions
taking place in a single closed ticket
on Twitter Bootstrap’s GitHub project

51. main question:
Should Bootstrap change a
syntactic shortcut that does not
minify properly in JSMin?

52. main question (broadened):
Should library authors care
about interoperability with JSMin?
Or should JSMin accommodate code
that Crockford finds distasteful?

53. meta-discussions perpetuated
by at least two of the 143 ticket participants:

54. “People who don’t use
semicolons are
JavaScript hipsters.”
“No, people who are
fanatical about
semicolons are just
spreading FUD.”

55. “@fat is being a jackass
and a bad project
steward.”
“No, people like you are
bitching about a library
they got for free.”

56. “Semicolon or not, that line
should still be rewritten.”

57. “JSMin sucks anyway.
People should use
some other minifier.”

58. “Who cares about minification?
Everyone’s got a fast connection now.”

59. “We’ve now spent like a hundred comments
arguing about a single semicolon
that @fat is too stubborn to add.”

60. “We are bikeshedding
like hell up in here.”

61. “Stop posting on this ticket! GitHub sends me a
notification with each new comment.”

62. also: trolls

63. also: wisecracks

64. meanwhile:

65. Staying on topic
requires moderation.

66. How to speak:

67. Be nice.

68. Speak with surgical precision.

69. E-Prime

70. “Any proposition containing the word ‘is’ creates
a linguistic structural confusion which will
eventually give birth to serious fallacies.”
Alfred Korzybski,
Semanticist

71. “PHP is awful.”

72. “PHP is awful.”
“Whenever I use PHP, I end up longing
for the logical API and unsurprising
behavior of Ruby or JavaScript.”

73. “jQuery is easier to use
than MooTools.”

74. “jQuery is easier to use
than MooTools.”
“I find jQuery more intuitive
to use than MooTools.”

75. Be honest in your
characterizations.

76. “What if the other side
won’t play along?”

77. Don’t rise to the bait.

79. Emphasize the contrast between
your tactics and your opponents’.

80. “Why do I have to
take the high road?”

81. Hellfire and torment
I didn’t have time for:

82. Ember vs. Backbone

83. Micro-frameworks

84. CoffeeScript!

85. Issue #28: script loading solution
https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/issues/28

86. Douglas Crockford
vs.
the world

87. (fin)