Who am I to say things to this guy's face? I don't know him. I haven't been aware of his existence, beyond maybe having used a project or two that he's worked on, until today. He presumably doesn't want to hear from me.

I'm saying that his behavior is bad for the community, both Perl's and ours. I'm saying it to "the HN community", because I have nobody else to say it to.

We've seen this before. It was titled "Rails is a ghetto" and whatever change it inspired didn't cover the drama it caused. Zed himself said he was sorry to have written it.

I haven't read "Rails is a ghetto," but I do know that Zed Shaw's writing style is a lot more abrasive than this article. The basic premise here seems to be, "Why can't people just be civil to each other?" On the other hand, most of Zed Shaw's writing is of the form, "I'm right, and these people are wrong. They are so wrong that it physically pains me, and I should probably sue them for that." The only link that they would seem to have is that they are both, "I'm leaving X community, and here is why" blog posts.