Re: Han from China's comp.lang.c topicality FAQ (version 2.0)

[This reply contains rebuttals only of points that I believe the OP to have
made in good faith and that (as far as I can recall) I haven't already
rebutted; I haven't bothered to reply to stuff that appears to have been
written only for purposes of provocation. So this reply is relatively
short.]

Borked Pseudo Mailed said:

COMP.LANG.C TOPICALITY FAQ

Version: 2.0
Author: Han from China, a comp.lang.c troll

INTRO

This is a comp.lang.c topicality FAQ. It contains answers pertaining to
what you can and cannot post to the comp.lang.c Usenet newsgroup. Note
that this is /a/ comp.lang.c topicality FAQ, not /the/ comp.lang.c
topicality FAQ (by the inherent relativism of a charter-less group, there
can be no /the/).

Mr Mailed is no more entitled than anyone else to prevent anyone posting
here on any topic they like. Wise Usenauts will post in a newsgroup
relevant to the question they wish to ask or the point they wish to make,
for reasons that have been gone over ad nauseam.

<snip>

If you don't like me and don't want to read what I have to say, you can
killfile me on subject lines containing "Han from China" (be sure to
include provisions for the possessive, "Han from China's".)

That's all very well, but who will rebut Mr Mailed's nonsense if all the
clueful people killfile him? If it is left unrebutted, there is a danger
that he might mislead newbies into behaving as ignorantly as he seems
determined to do.

<snip>

Actually, I was pointing out the silliness and double standards involved
in making arbitrary decisions about what should be banned and what
shouldn't.

Mr Mailed has made a bad point inadequately. Nobody here is in a position
to ban anything or anyone. What people *can* do, and *do* do, is suggest
more appropriate newsgroups for certain kinds of discussion. Mr Mailed
accidentally made this point himself.

<snip>

Ideally, the beginner C programmer should be able to post here and in
alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++.

That's a poor use of resources - both for the OP and for those who might
help him.

The C algorithm writer should be able to post
here and in comp.theory. And the C Win32 API coder should be able to post
here and in comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32. Nobody who has come
along so far has any right to rewrite the founding message and impose an
ANSI/ISO C restriction on this newsgroup, whether by vote or not.

Nobody has *imposed* an ANSI C or ISO C restriction on this newsgroup. What
Mr Mailed calls a "restriction" is merely the prevailing view of the
current crop of regular contributors - those who provide the actual help.
Nor has anyone attempted to rewrite what Mr Mailed calls the "founding
message". Rather, there has been a recognition that things have changed
over the years, and there are now vastly more groups than there were at
the time that the forerunner to comp.lang.c was set up, and many of those
groups provide better homes than comp.lang.c for particular kinds of
discussions.

I recommend the creation of comp.lang.c.iso or comp.lang.iso-c. It's in
the tradition of the comp.lang.* hierarchy to discuss topics tangential
to the languages involved. For instance, on comp.lang.c++, a person
asking for help choosing a C++ GUI toolkit doesn't get flamed (there are
threads as evidence).

The comp.lang.c++ newsgroup widened its topicality view by a significant
amount, a few years ago - and was swamped. It took some years to recover,
and only by the most rigorous efforts to return to a stricter topicality
view.

On comp.lang.perl, a person asking for help with a
Perl module or, say, Perl/Tk doesn't get flamed and sent away, even
though in that case there exists comp.lang.perl.tk. On comp.lang.c, a
person asking for help choosing a C threading library gets flamed.

A good comp.lang.c answer to such a question would be something like: "The
C language itself doesn't support threading, but many implementations do
support it. Unfortunately, there is no single standard way to do this, and
implementations often go their own way. Therefore, the best advice I can
give you is to ask your question in a newsgroup specific to your
implementation, or on a group devoted to discussing threading." There is
absolutely no need to flame anyone just for asking a question in the wrong
place. (If they *keep* asking it after having been redirected, they are
more likely to get impatient responses.)

How
comp.lang.c became a haven for ANSI/ISO pedants is beyond me.

ISO C pedants are exactly what comp.lang.c needs. When one asks a question
about C, it's nice to get a correct answer.

I suspect
comp.std.c was to serve a dual purpose, but then the pedants, seeing how
popular that group became, decided to infiltrate this one and ruin
everyone's fun.

The comp.std.c group discusses the C Standard. The comp.lang.c group
discusses the C language as defined by that Standard.

<snip>

Richard Heathfield said:
[The weight of the founding message is] miniscule, because it's out
of date. Things have moved on.

George W. Bush on the founding message of the United States:
"It's just a goddamned piece of paper."

For those who wish to discuss local politics, I suggest a newsgroup devoted
to discussing local politics. Here, we discuss C.

<snip>

I and the people who share my view on comp.lang.c topicality would have
just as much right to declare the imposed ANSI/ISO C topicality of
comp.lang.c obsolete and out of date as you have to declare the founding
message obsolete and out of date.

People can declare whatever they like, but surely the important points are
that people who wish to discuss C have a place where they can do that, and
people who want answers to C questions know where to get them, and people
who want answers to questions that are only tangentially related to C can
get good advice on where to find the best possible answer to their
question. Unless the question is actually about C itself, there's almost
always a better place to get good answers to such questions.

The argument
you make (or, rather, the implications of your argument, whether
intentional or not) would have us believe that Larry Wall should be able
to join comp.lang.perl and restrict Perl discussions to what's contained
in his book.

I debunked this in my previous reply.

[...] it
doesn't matter how long someone has been here when it comes to deciding
topicality.

Very true. What matters is what individuals are prepared to discuss, and
how much they care about what readers think about them. People can post
spam here if they like, and the only people who can stop them are news
server administrators (by refusing to accept or propagate their articles).
But that doesn't mean they'll win many friends by doing so.

<snip>

As a lowly and undistinguished C programmer of, I suppose, arguably
intermediate rank, I've made contributions to the errata of _C
Unleashed_, a book written by the ANSI/ISO C experts.

[I debunked this in my previous reply. Please refer to that reply.]

It was my understanding that I was in your killfile.

You seem to have lost none of your ability to misunderstand.

--
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
.