Agreed - across this thread, there's been a lot of what imputation of bad or petty intent and/or of a disagreeable emotional state on the part of the blog author that just isn't called for.
That's a perfectly reasonable assessment. Also, it's certainly a dream product compared to anything on the market 20 years ago. So yeah, it's fair to say the original blog post could have been more nuanced in its holistic assessment of MySQL.
But then again, you can tell he was worn down from his experience working there. The industry has a way of doing that to people.
What would stop them from trashing me as a new employer?
Not giving people loads and loads of things to feel bitter about. And an eggshell-strewn environment where it's basically impossible to air these concerns with anyone upstream.
There’s definitely a lot of “our users are sheep” and “everyone else is dumb” going on in this post.
Well, we disagree then. I see his post as making some definitely very harsh critiques -- but still short of the threshold of outright insulting people.
People can talk about it whenever they want, I'm only speaking in support of the very narrow point that it is unprofessional.
Stop mincing words, please.
If it's deemed "unprofessional" to talk about it, then to all intents and purposes -- "if he knows what's good for him" as the saying goes -- he can't.
Well I didn't mean "conditions" like having to work in a windowless basement, with a pile phonebooks to sit on instead of a chair.
But rather: being asked to work on products we just can't really believe in, to be silent when upper management (though otherwise supportive and presumably in no way outwardly abusive or mean) would prefer that we keep our blinders on, etc.
It's just code.
His main concern was the quality of the product as a whole -- and the lack of awareness in that environment of what, to him, seemed to be simple and obvious facts. The remarks about the "bad code" almost tangential (like he said, "it didn't bother me much").
"More jarring were the people who insisted everything was OK"
I read this as simply being honest (in the "Dutch" sense). It wasn't like he was shit-talking his former co-workers, per se. He's just saying he had a radically different appraisal of technical viability of the flagship product.
Why is it seen as "acting in ways actively hostile" to one's previous employer to... simply speak the truth, as one sees it, about the nuts and bolts the work that one actually did there -- and the quality of the products that emerged as a result?
I find this sort of behavior to be slightly unprofessional.
I find it highly professional, in the sense that he was being 100 percent honest -- and true to his craft. And not in the least vindictive or spiteful in regard to his previous employer.
It reads more like "i left because the code sucks, everyone around me is dumb, and our users are sheep"
Not in the least. The fact that he doesn't say what you're saying he says ("everyone around me is dumb, and our users are sheep"), but rather simply sticks to brass tacks -- and it's pretty hard to counter his main point (about the quality of MySQL as a product), after all -- belies the characterization you are trying to make of what he said.
The post just reads as bitter,
Anytime anyone, heaven forbid, talks the plain and simple truth about the conditions many of us work under in this industry -- they get characterized as "bitter", "derisive", "just venting", or (especially in the context of describing our past work experiences to prospective employers), "badmouthing". Or as you put it: "childish".
They get fed into a web crawler and then into a giant hopper whence they become the backbone of that shiny "No Code" technology you've been hearing about.
Cargo-cult programming has always been a problem, but now we're explicitly building tools for it.
I get what you're saying, but I'm not worried. At the end of the day, the programmer has to understand the code they're submitting, both the fine grain and the holistic context. If they don't know how to, or can't be bothered at least curate the suggestions the tool is making... then your organization has much bigger problems than can be helped by reading a Dijkstra paper or two.