I stand by my assertion that telling him he has a shitty attitude is not a personal attack. No more so than you telling me that I made a personal attack is a personal attack. His comment showed a shitty attitude underlying it.

Pointing that out is just like pointing out that someone is being aggressive, insulting, etc.

EDIT:

And as far as me telling him to feel free to take it elsewhere, that's just me saying I'm not interested in it.

While it's good that HN discourages/disallows personal attacks, that can be taken too far to the point of being reactionary and looking for any excuse to simply dismiss someone because they said something someone else didn't like.