Re: A note on computing thugs and coding bums

On Jan 9, 4:19 pm, user923005 <dcor...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 8, 10:40 pm, Richard Heathfield <r...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





spinoza1111 said:

The key fact about the Schildt campaign (a campaign of criticism
directed at Herbert Schildt, author of The Complete C++ Reference
based on such "mistakes" as telling students that negative numbers are
[mostly] stored twos complement) is that it focused on Herb as a
person not to be trusted.

No, the key criticism of Schildt's books is that they contain many
technical errors.

Several good-faith negative reviews were Amazon-posted in May 2004
about my own book, "Build Your Own .Net Language and Compiler";

You'd be silly to treat them seriously, just as you'd be silly to treat any
positive Amazon reviews seriously, for reasons I have already explained in
a recent thread.

However, at this time, I'm not worth mounting a deliberate campaign
with a key syntactical change: the shift from the focus on the product
to the focus on the person, and this is the shift that I objected to
in Herb's case. This isn't being conducted on Amazon because I take
steps when it occurs.

There Is No Campaign. Good books get good crits. Bad books get bad crits..
Schildt writes lots of bad books. Therefore Schildt gets lots of bad
crits.

It is occuring here in my case as well as that of Herb.

It isn't occurring *at all*.

But, because it's so very unusual for people on electronic networks to
be even physically capable of expressing other than negative emotions

Rubbish. Just because *you* don't get to see such expression, that doesn't
mean it doesn't happen. And in fact I know that it does.

I am being assaulted

Rubbish.

for speaking this truth:

You wouldn't know truth if it bit you.

that it would be
possible to discuss Herb's errors in a specific book, such as the
omission of virtual base classes, without once using syntax of the
form "don't trust Herb" or "Herb is incompetent".

And indeed this has been done. Francis Glassborow has done it, and many
others have done it. But you don't get to dictate what other people say.
Some people are indeed able and willing to crit Schildt books patiently,
objectively, and dispassionately. Some people are less patient, especially
after they've uncovered a great many errors that *demonstrate* his
incompetence.

This is being done, I believe, by Richard Heathfield here as the
editor of an inferior and little-regarded book, C Unleashed, to
promote his sales in an inappropriately commercial misuse of usenet.

If you claim that a book is inferior to the Schildt books with which you
are comparing it, you ought to explain why you think it's inferior. If you
claim that a book is little-regarded, you ought to explain why it got a
much better review at ACCU than the Schildt books with which you are
comparing it.

But somehow I feel that you're not going to do this. Whenever you are asked
to back up an assertion with facts, you seem to reply with half a dozen
more assertions, none of which are backed up with facts.

<usual sociology rant snipped>

Richard, you're being trolled.  I think it is pretty obvious.  I don't
think he believes one word of what he is saying.  He's just pushing
hot buttons to see if he can get responses.  Of course, he might
really be that thick, but I doubt it.

IMO-YMMV.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm not trolling. My name is Edward G. Nilges. After a 30 year career
in programming, which started with compiler debugging in machine
language and included the development of several large systems and
assisting a Nobel winner, I am a teacher and writer in Hong Kong. I
have published on software since 1976, and I am the author of "Build
Your Own .Net Language and Compiler".

I used this ng in 2003 while writing my book and since that time have
been stalked and harassed by a group led by Richard Heathfield, the
editor of C Unleashed, an inferior and low-sales book. Basically, I
cannot post here, although I shall, without that post being vandalized
by a cybernetic mob incited by Mr. Heathfield who always seems to find
time in his busy schedule to insert a post questioning not content but
competence in a way deliberately designed to emotionally manipulate
the programmers at this site, most of whom are less than competent and
thereby filled with anxiety, an anxiety they cover up by bullying and
joining electronic Lynch mobs.

Richard's bad faith is indicating by his harassment of respected
industry figure Herbert Schildt who in 1989 showed how to write a
simple recursive descent parser for Tiny C, the ability to both write
and explain recursive descent being something that separates the men
from the boys, and the coding bums from the professionals...the former
preferring to make mountains of libel about such crimes as the use of
an invariant expression in a for loop. I also explain recursive
descent in Build Your Own, and I find thugs and authoritarian coding
bums uniquely unable to follow its logic, whence their rage and
anxiety.

I have recently suspended posting and shall resuspend again, because
I'm engaged in authoring an object-oriented riposte to Brian
Kernighan's claim, in the recent O'Reilly Media book Beautiful Code,
that an inferior solution authored in an hour by Rob Pike is
Beautiful...without once challenging Kernighan's competence or worth
as a person.

I repeatedly demonstrate the difference between criticising a person's
output and engaging in systematic campaigns of personal destruction
for economic gain, which appear to be Mr. Heathfield's hobby.

Next time, read posts with due diligence so you don't make stupid
mistakes. I identified Heathfield as the author of C Unleashed, and
Schildt as the author of The Complete C++ Reference. And before you
make wild accusations of trolling, do your homework. Otherwise, you're
just another slob who's found a mob to follow.
.