There are all kinds of language registers for communication. From formal business speak to 'locker room banter'. What is appropriate or otherwise depends entirely on the participants of the conversation. So, it depends on what kind of conversation we're trying to have.

I think this post's usage is meant deliberately to be a bit edgy, to illustrate how badly Microsoft has behaved.

An encouragement to be mindful of language, and therefore discuss what shared context we're trying to build, shouldn't be so controversial in a self-professed 'thoughtful' [0] forum.

Personally, data point of 1, I think it's a bit distasteful, and would prefer to participate in a community that doesn't routinely use that kind of langauge.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I their point was: the comment they were replying to ("Beating is a normal English idiom") was being disingenuous.

Saying something like "the benchmarks took a beating in the new version" would be inoffensive but "flowers after the beating" is much more specifically about abuse in a relationship.

I don't think "Whether or not you think it's appropriate" was meant to say, don't worry it's fine. I think it just meant, let's not justify by pretending that it's about something different than it obviously is.

The article comes back to the abuse analogy multiple times. If you want to defend that as fine, go for it, but in no way is it a new topic that the poster here brought up.

Oh please, TFA has a title of "Flowers after the beating" - its a direct reference to domestic abuse which attempts to equate Microsofts behaviour and that of a domestic abuser.

Username checks out, but you might want to check with your mother about how she feels about this comparison.

TFA brings up abuse not stndef.

An analogy is "a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects" and stndef is right to point out that microsoft behavior, while abusive, is not comparable to domestic abuse "in significant respects". Not even close.

The TFA title is sensational for effect and in very poor taste.