Someone not having an emotional reaction would not use expressions like "All the worst and most time-consuming troubleshooting experiences of my life have involved Java" and "the JVM decided to vomit all over my screen".
"All the worst and most time-consuming troubleshooting experiences of my life have involved Java" is simply a statement.
All the worst and most time-consuming troubleshooting experiences of my life have involved dealing with a legacy VB6 app with a truly terrible MSSQL database structure - that's not an emotional statement, it's a fact.
> All the worst and most time-consuming troubleshooting experiences of my life have involved dealing with a legacy VB6 app with a truly terrible MSSQL database structure
Do you feel any powerful emotion when you think about that experience? Would you be indifferent if you would need to do it again?
Yes, dread. But it doesn't make the statement any less true. Myself and every single person maintaining that system felt exactly the same - it was a complete mess.
It was the owner of the platform & its developers, neither technology - I think we both understand that.
I was just trying to make the point that it's not necessarily emotional for someone to not want to work with a certain tool without an expert available because of terrible past experiences where that was the case.
I'd say it's almost impossible to imagine any past event someone has present at without having some emotional response.
See sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24899595