Today, I began an attempt to debate why HTML5 is not going to be as “big” as everyone thinks it is… boy was I asking for trouble. :D I didn’t realize how vocal about HTML5 that people can be but like every average fanboy of any piece of technology, I attempted to debate the finer points and specifics as to why HTML5 was less likely to be a success. Then began my journey of understanding… very few folks discuss things rationally, seldom backing up their claims with fact but rather opinions they believe deeply… which isn’t the same thing last time I checked. Then after a couple of well-stated rebuttals, I realized the only person I was convincing was myself.
Let me just start off by saying I’m “Pro-XHTML” and not “Pro-HTML5”… don’t leave just yet nerds! I did the research myself, got an A+ on the research paper for my Informatics mid-term and the instructor even said I hit the synopsis right on the head but you know… whatever right? Who needs facts when you have opinions that coincide with others! :D
I’m not going to even bother re-stating my case on this as it’s already been discussed among great minds like Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web Consortium foundation… look it up, research it and make up your own minds… I don’t have all day to try and educate people who don’t want to learn.
Now that craps out of the way, I wanted to outline my discoveries of technology debates in general and my overall opinion of these as I think this will save people a lot of time wasted on people who aren’t into discussing things and keeping an open mind about it.
My list of discoveries necessary for having healthy debates about technology:
1. Avoid people who claim to “know it all”… if they did, they would be rich and not chatting with you on a forum thread.
2. Only speak to relevant facts and figures about the technology you are discussing. Nobody cares about an opinion if it doesn’t attempt to address the questions and answers left for discussion.
3. Have an open mind and open ears. You can’t tell anybody anything if you aren’t listening to them.
4. If you don’t really have any technical information relevant to the discussion in particular, don’t go injecting your opinions about it to replace valid arguments with.
5. If you really want to discuss things and have educational learning in discussions, DON’T GO TO A FORUM EXPECTING IT!! Many of the people in the forums you are at have very limited knowledge about other areas of expertise and often get into theoretical conversations about things without all the facts of a basic understanding of the facts.
In short, I’ve learned unless you are in the appropriate forum where people actually know WTF you are talking about… the people are clueless and will attempt to debate you over it, even when you are all on the same team and you are trying to have a valid debate over facts… they won’t have any for you.
Don’t go wasting your time anymore on forums, thinking people are going to help give you some valuable insight into something you already know about… your barking up the wrong tree!
