> I do believe that if you claim serious knowledge about some project, but can't name anyone involved into that project in one way or another, there's something weird going on.
Even if this is true (which is debatable at best), it's a long stretch from the blogger's aphorism "If you don't know $VOCAL_DIVA_PROGRAMMER, Scala==hard". He obviously doesn't imply you should be familiar with Mongrel to have a chance to become good in Scala.
All this nonsense would be unnecessary if the author made his point by mentioning, say, "referential transparency" or "map-reduce" instead of "Zed Shaw".
I agree with your opinion this part of the article is silly/wrong. Then again, I was responding directly to the parent's claim, rather than "commending on the article through responding to the parent" ;)
Even if this is true (which is debatable at best), it's a long stretch from the blogger's aphorism "If you don't know $VOCAL_DIVA_PROGRAMMER, Scala==hard". He obviously doesn't imply you should be familiar with Mongrel to have a chance to become good in Scala.
All this nonsense would be unnecessary if the author made his point by mentioning, say, "referential transparency" or "map-reduce" instead of "Zed Shaw".