Re: A note on computing thugs and coding bums

On Jan 11, 4:25 pm, Richard Heathfield <r...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
spinoza1111said:

On Jan 11, 1:08 am, Richard Heathfield <r...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
spinoza1111said:

<snip>

Almost every review mentions that he's a good writer,

Right. There are many good writers. Being a good writer is a
nice-to-have for a C tutorial writer, but it is not sufficient of
itself. A detailed knowledge of C is also a requirement.

I don't think you have that "detailed knowledge of C"

You are certainly free to hold that opinion...

and I believe Herb[ert Schildt] has it,

...and that one. My own view is that at least one of these opinions renders
you unable to be taken seriously by genuine C experts.

because knowing C isn't knowing a standard, it's knowing
both standard and non-standard implementations. C is a praxis.

Although I do not entirely agree with this (because I think knowing C /is/
about knowing a standard, in the sense that ignorance of the standard
means ignorance of C), it is certainly true that knowledge of standard
implementations is also necessary (for truly knowing C), and knowledge of
non-standard implementations can at least be useful. Your hero Herbert
Schildt said in the preface to "C - The Complete Reference", 2nd edition:
"the main emphasis is on the ANSI C standard". So Schildt, unlike you,
does at least seem to recognise the importance of the C Standard, even if
he doesn't understand its contents.

You "post links". Well, the Vandals' article on Herb in wikipedia
shows that on the Internet, anyone can "post links" elsethread to ruin
another person strictly by innuendo,

Nevertheless, both Clive Feather and Peter Seebach (each of whom either
is or was a member of the ISO C committee, and each of whom is
well-respected by other C experts) have provided detailed critiques of
Schildt books, demonstrating not by innuendo but by analysis that those
books are deeply

You are in the innuendo business, not they, because instead of
discussing issues here you continually refer to issues by name and not
by description.

No, it's just that you don't bother to read, or don't admit to reading, the
bits where I describe the issues.

This is because you get easily confused and flustered
in online technical exchanges (as when you confused && and || in our
test last week)

I have already dealt with this in the thread where it arose. Don't you read
the replies you get?

and it diminishes the false authority which you seek
to project to actually discuss C.

I don't seek to project anything, and I certainly don't seek any authority..
You're hung up on authority for some reason - possibly because you've
never had any?

flawed - the intent not being to "ruin another person" but to inform
people who wish to obtain a good C book precisely why Schildt's books do
not fall into that category.

<much raving snipped>

I'm not "raving".

Keep on denying it. That's important. As long as you can say to yourself
that you're not raving, there is still a little hope left.

A complex sentence isn't "raving".

Nevertheless, raving can take the form of a complex sentence. But what I
snipped was not in fact a complex sentence. It was mere raving.

I can write and you cannot.

I'm happy to leave that for others to decide. I can understand why you are
not, though.

[Snip] "computing thugs" & "coding bums" subjective drivel, none of
[which I
recognise in many USENET programmers and I have been here since 1995..

Richard Heathfield is a computing thug because he is misusing this
site for commercial gain.

That is not true for several reasons:

(a) it's a newsgroup, not a Web site;

Master of Terminology strikes again

Terminology is important. A good working knowledge of terminology isn't
sufficient to demonstrate technical excellence, but it is certainly a
prerequisite. Or perhaps I should put it monosyllabically: if you don't
use the right words, folks will think you don't know the things we use the
words for.



(b) I'm not misusing it (or even using it) for commercial gain;

I believe you are.

Yes, I *know* you believe this. I wasn't saying you don't believe it. I was
saying it isn't *true*. There is a significant difference. This is a hard
lesson, I know, but really, just because you believe something, that
*doesn't* necessarily make it true. Really it doesn't.

I believe you started using it in 1999

To be more precise, I started using Usenet in 1998; the first time I posted
an article in which I expressed an informed opinion of Schildt's books was
in comp.lang.c rather than in this group, but yes, it was in 1999.

to trash Schildt

No, I posted an informed opinion of his books.

and present a false theory of C which ignores practice

I don't know any theories of C, true or false. As for ignoring practice, my
understanding of C is largely built on practice; my study of the Standard
tidied up a few loose ends in my understanding, and corrected a few
misconceptions I had about the language.

because
you wished to promote a book you could not even write, but had to
edit.

I don't think I've ever actively promoted the book on Usenet, actually.
I've mentioned it a few times, usually in response to someone else raising
the subject. But if I *were* seeking to promote it on Usenet, I would find
a better way to do this than to post critiques of an author with whose
books my own book was not even competing. ("C Unleashed" did not target
the same market as Schildt's books.)

It is certainly true that I did not write the whole of "C Unleashed".
Deadlines wouldn't permit that. But I did write around a quarter of it -
more than any of the several other contributing authors (who did an
excellent job, by the way). I'm sure I've told you this before, but there
seems little point in expecting you to remember facts.

(c) even if I were which I'm not, and even if it were which it isn't,
misusing a Web site for commercial gain is certainly opprobrious but you
have not demonstrated why it implies that those who do so are computing
thugs.

If you cannot make that connection, you are indeed a thug,

Please clarify whether you think the failure to make that connection makes
*anyone* a thug, or whether you think it's just me. If the former, then
please explain why J Random Lurker is a thug just for failing to follow
your bizarre leaps of illogic. If the latter, please explain why.

because to
the thug, everything is of interest only as an opportunity for his
personal gratification.

Oh, I see - begging the question. But since I'm *not* misusing Usenet to
promote the book and since I'm here to help others to learn about
programming in general and C in particular rather than for personal
gratification, your argument falls.

You come here to ruin people and you are a thug.

False premise, false conclusion.

Randy Howard is a coding bum who doesn't
contribute much more than abuse and conventional wisdom.

He actually contributes quite a lot to this newsgroup. As for
conventional wisdom, I'd rather read articles containing conventional
wisdom than those containing unconventional stupidity.

I'm sure you would.

Yes. You seem to be trying to imply that conventional wisdom is somehow
worse than unconventional stupidity. Of course, I *could* be wrong about
that.

I'm sure you have a direct financial interest in
code with gnomic identifiers written to show off the author's
knowledge and not to solve a problem.

So you're sure. Fine. And you're also fairly sure I work for MI5, right?
This gives some indication of how valuable your certainty is as a measure
of truth.

This probably gives you opportunities as a "consultant".

Really? Sure about that, too, are you? Ah wait - you said "probably" - so
you're about as sure of it as you are about my working for MI5? Would that
be fair?

Both are
thugs also because they vandalize threads with opinions about
personalities.

If that argument is valid, then you are a thug, because you vandalise
threads with opinions about personalities. And where does that get us?
Nowhere.

As you know, I have responded to your crap since the start of the year
in such a way that you compulsively and obsessively reply,

I correct your mistakes, as far as I am able and as far as I can spot them

This is a lie. Programmer Dude in 2003 and Ben Bacarisse today correct
my mistakes. Ben does a better job than Dude because he doesn't
confuse his stylistic prejudices with reality.

From day one, you began by calling my placing "programmer
professionalism" in context off-topic, not because it was, but because
you lacked sufficient education to understand it, and this threatened
your dominance of this newsgroup. In 2003, it was the Dude who noticed
an error which I fixed independently and then, following your lead,
posted objections offline rather than engaging in dialog; but, it was
he who did the work.

You had the opportunity as a C/C++ expert to examine the code posted
in "Brian Kernighan, maybe I'm not worthy, maybe I'm scum" to find its
errors. Instead of doing this, you vandalized the thread because
you're not man enough to make a statement that might be useful, that
might move the conversation along in a collective search for truth,
because this might expose your weakness, and as a bully you fear and
you hound weakness in others because of your fear of your own
inadequcy.


and as far as I don't lose patience with them. You can use whatever
psychiatry buzzwords you like to describe the fact of people correcting
your mistakes, but the corrections remain corrections, and they would be
rendered unnecessary if only you would refrain from making mistakes.

This is a uniquely clerkish perspective, and one made in an industry
most famous for institutional mistakes constituted in shipment of
software with countless errors, one made in an industry that from DAY
ONE has had to acknowledge the ubiquity of mistake-making. Your fear
of "making mistakes" has made you into a technical bully of the sort
that in real companies causes errors by nastily interrupting
structured walkthroughs with foul language and with job-related
threats.

You're the problem person here and you need to leave.



not with code examples as I have,

How on earth does one reply to a false claim about misuse of Usenet for
book promotion with a *code example*?

Are you as stupid as you seem to be? I am saying that you DON'T post
code because you're afraid of being mocked by organized thug campaigns
of the sort you have marshaled against people in the past.

No competent people, except myself and occasionally Godwin, visit this
site. Do you know why? It's because if someone with Kernighan's
competence and star power were to enter, he would attract zero-sum
people who get their rocks off, not by engaging in a reasonably civil
technical conversation, but by "proving" that they are "smarter" than
Schildt.

I'm not attempting to "prove" that I'm "smarter than" Kernighan. Part
of the problem, identified by Marcuse, is precisely the idea that we
must find our place in the ranks of a One-Dimensional, militarized and
garrison society, and not seek the truth, there being no truth to the
hopeless and self-hating *wildgeword kleinburger*, just money, and not
much of that either.

But you came here in 1998 to take Schildt down and raise yourself up,
despite the fact that you simply don't have his culture and his
humanity.

You don't hate his errors. You probably hate his picture on the cover
of born to code. It's all personalities to you, and the impossible
task of relieving your own feelings of professional, personal, and
sexual inadequacy.


In any case, I have posted a fair amount of code to this newsgroup, not to
make political points about Brian Kernighan but to help specific people
who have asked specific questions about programming. I am not concerned
about my code ratio here, at least not at present.

but repetitious and almost canned answers to
save time, and you don't care that this creates threads in which the
original contribution is lost, and you certainly don't care when
people enter and draw false conclusions.

It is because I do care about the risk of people entering and drawing false
conclusions that I continually refer people back to source material that
demonstrates your evasive nature, your continual refusal to back up your
lunatic assertions with evidence, and your ability to ignore facts in
favour of some bizarre kind of dialectic. Such references give people the
opportunity to reach their own conclusions, based on the facts. I am not
surprised that you are opposed to this.

No, you are physically incapable of writing without help, offline, and
in secret. I'd make mincemeat of you person to person. Care to arrange
a meeting?

Your INTENT is to vandalise
and fill the newgroup with a data smog of replies.

In fact, I ...

read more »

.

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