Re: The problems in comp.lang.c
- From: Richard Heathfield <rjh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:43:01 +0000
Jeff P. Bailey said:
On 24/3/2008 12:31, Richard Heathfield wrote:<snip>
Jeff P. Bailey said:
This is the sort of thing I was talking about - a pointlessly negative
post.
It is, I agree, mostly negative in tone. I do not agree that it is
pointlessly so.
It is a sequence of slurs against jacob, with no obvious basis in
objective fact.
If you'd been here a bit longer, you'd know the basis in objective fact. If
you're prepared to put the work in, you will find many examples of Mr
Navia's articles that demonstrate this.
It is hard for an outside observer not to conclude that
you are conducting a personal campaign against him.
Then do the research, and become an inside observer.
Every article of jacob's I've read has been well-informed and
useful
Then you have not read very many of them.
I've read enough to see that jacob knows what he's talking about,
Then you have not read enough to see that he often doesn't. Not always, of
course - but often.
Once again: is it possible that your personal dislike of jacob makes you
read each of his posts, looking to find something to criticize?
It isn't intrinsically impossible, of course (to answer you literally), but
it is not in fact the case. If you don't count the trolls and the
spammers, I try to read every article posted in comp.lang.c (not that I
always manage it). If I see something that's obviously - or even
non-obviously - wrong that nobody else has pointed out, I will generally
post a reply. The fact that many of my replies seem to be directed to
Jacob Navia's articles merely reflects the number of times that I spot an
error in something he's written. Occasionally, I see him write something
that I actually agree with - which is always pleasant, when it happens,
which isn't often.
A reasonable person would say that threads (which will certainly be part
of the next C++ standard, and I believe are also being considered for
the next C standard) are a topic of interest to C programmers, whereas
the breeding habits of gazelle aren't.
That is very unlikely to be true. There will be at least one or two C
programmers, somewhere in the world, who are very interested in the
breeding habits of gazelles. They might even be modelling breeding
patterns in a C program, for conservation purposes. So *obviously* the
breeding habits of gazelles should be topical here. And that way madness
lies.
Many legal systems have a notion of "reasonable doubt" that isn't
precisely defined. Most reasonable people are able to decide what's
reasonable in a reasonable way.
(a) comp.lang.c isn't a legal system in that sense;
(a) to some extent I agree with you - for example, about four or five
months ago I suggested, in a nice shiny new thread, that we extend the
topicality of this group. Most people who responded rejected the idea. Is
it reasonable to ignore their wishes?
The reason it seems crazy to me is that it costs you (in Thunder Bird at
least) a single key-press to *ignore* a thread that you're not
interested in
And several thousand keypresses a day to ignore the several thousand
threads we're not interested in, and that can take an hour or more of
time. By the time clc descends to that level, it will have lost all the
people that make it worth reading.
This seems to me to be pure exaggeration.
At the moment, it is - and it is my fervent desire that it remains so. I
don't want the C content of clc to be buried under thousands of irrelevant
articles.
Once again, your attitude
seems to be entirely negative: like nay-sayer who just grumbles that
"it'll never work", instead of getting on with it and potentially
benefitting C programmers with useful information and advice - whether
about standard C, or about the landscape in which C sits.
I am content with my record of providing useful information and advice
about C to readers of this group. Are you content with yours? Instead of
complaining about this group, why not work to make it better, by posting
useful information and advice about C? My attitude may seem negative to
you, but your attitude seems destructive to me. If you think there isn't
enough useful information posted here about C, post some!
- you don't need to reply to it, or even take any time
seeing any more posts in the thread once you've ignored it. Making a
series of "that's off topic" posts takes /much/ more time than just
pressing the ignore key!
Nevertheless, it seems to keep the off-topic posts to a manageable
level.
Again, negative: who cares if we lose good stuff, as long as we exclude
the "bad"?
Where do you look for gold? If you have astounding patience, you look for
it in the ground amidst all the muck, or in the riverbeds. But if you just
want some gold and you want it *now*, you go to the jeweller, where you
are entitled to expect that most of the mud has been cleaned off for you.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
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