Re: [EGN] Variable hoisting

From: Edward G. Nilges (spinoza1111_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/10/04 

Date: 9 Sep 2004 16:21:17 -0700

Programmer Dude <Chris@Sonnack.com> wrote in message news:<dv31k0t23isisov1rgsvkntg51j4v0pp22@4ax.com>...
> EMonk writes:
>
> >> The same can be said about my own biography. You have repeated without
> >> your own due diligence lies about me that are based on some fairly
> >> solid work that was performed by Chris Sonnack, who in fact disliked
> >> my C coding style and who in fact found a bug in some code I posted
> >> (but lacked in fact the maturity to see that adults post code in order
> >> to debug it and to get useful critique...not flames).
>
> So many lies in one paragraph.
>
> 1. My opinion of the coding style was a trivial matter mentioned in
> passing. An mature adult programmer would have taken it for what
> it was and moved on, not obsessed over it for years.

Incorrect. You used trivial and personal rules about coding style as a
basis for a personal offensive because you were being emotionally
manipulated by Richard Heathfield. Throughout the discussion you acted
in bad faith and as if personal reputation is more important than
programming issues, making this ng a biographiucal newsgrou, "about"
the *amour-propre* of a small working set of trolls.
>
> 2. In fact, I found a couple bugs, one I considered a typo (and note
> that the code style was so bad that this was missed by not only
> the original author, but also by a C expert (Richard)). The other
> very serious bug--a major design error--required two years for the
> author to even acknowledge.

This is a lie. The major bug, as I have said repeatedly, was that the
C code parsed a series of blank-separated words effectively as ([^ ]+[
]+)* and not properly as ([ ]*[^ ]+)* (using regular expressions to
express the intent of manual code). This bug was found and fixed by me
the same evening in May 2002 I posted the code, and you deliberately
ignored the fix because you were being emotionally manipulated by
Richard Heathfield.

>
> 3. The author certainly did not post code in order to "debug" or get
> useful critique. The author posted code in furtherance of his
> agenda of slamming the C language and non-OO programming.
>
Of course, I welcomed constructive dialog NOT based on emotional
manipulation by strangers working perhaps for anti-labor organizations
and I've frequently engaged in collegial dialog.

A characteristic of such dialog is studied lack of anxiety about
whether one is an "incompetent" and a sign of this lack is that
psychological transference in the form of the charge of "incompetence"
doesn't replace substantive discussion as to whether C might be out of
date, because in fact while objects can be "simulated" in C they
cannot be truly represented.
 
> 4. As you mention below, the initial critique was emotionless, fair
> and balanced. No flames.
>
"Fair and balanced" is interesting in view of its misuse by Fox news,
and we can take it to mean as "fair and Balanced" as Fox news.

> 5. The author posted two versions, a C version whipped up in haste to
> further his agenda and a VB version--from the author's library of
> code, his ironically named "PowerString". Both contained serious
> design errors that caused erroneous results for certain input. I
> posted a VB version that delivered correct results and performed
> up to 40 times faster.

In a collegial exchange, not based on deciding the zero-sum
proposition "I'm a competent programmer and you're not", I would have
been interested in Chris' changes. Of course, one often discovers
(especially when code is written, as were my original examples, for
readability and not a false microefficiency) that one can make code
more efficient, and such a discovery can be of mutual delight to
original author and to modifier.

However, this has to be in contexts where the very word "delight"
doesn't sound foolish because a small, working set of trolls has
dominated a community in the spirit of anhedonia in which their
reputation and not the truth of the matter is the central issue.

As such, Chris committed theft of intellectual property and stolen
product including the notion of a power string in the first place now
decorates his Web site. It advertises a synthetic, as opposed to
analytic, intelligence which Chris does not possess.

>
> > Actually, his critique was quite good. Your response to it was almost
> > pure smoke and mirrors, mixed with a fair amount of flames. It wasn't
> > until that point that Chris got really nasty, and no wonder.
>
> I've never gotten *really* nasty here! :-)

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