Re: Java 7 features

On Aug 4, 12:52 am, Joe Attardi <jatta...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You're on an Internet discussion group and you are saying not to
criticize you?

Yes.

Who made you the moderator of this group?

Nobody. But the group charter says it is for the discussion of Java
programming. Personal criticisms of assorted people would appear to be
off-topic here.

If anybody in
this group wants to criticize or disagree with your views, that's
their right, just like it's your right to have your views.

I'm not talking about people disagreeing with my views. I'm talking
about people calling me a name or otherwise impugning me, personally,
the author of those views, rather than merely taking issue with the
views themselves.

(1) stop starting fights in every thread you go in

I'm not. Another one just flared up. You want to know how? Someone
asked about getting their plugin that implements some interface to
export settings data that the framework could use to present a UI; I
responded with the previously unmentioned method of having the plugin
actually furnish a JDialog object the framework only had to show and,
perhaps, wait for a response from; and then some *** jumped down
my throat without provocation.

My post immediately prior to this attack had been perfectly civil and
a good faith effort at being helpful. If this is the kind of thanks I
can generally expect, then maybe I *will* just go away and leave this
newsgroup to rot!

The attacker, Thomas Hawtin, had come up on my radar a few times
already with snarky/bellicose followups; pray tell, what is your
theory as to what motivates a certain type of person to actively and
aggressively search out any and all new postings to previously
uninvolved threads made by me in good faith and start a fight by
surfacing and launching all torpedoes without warning?

And what in the name of the rings of Saturn has you accusing ME of
starting fights, when examples like this one make it clear that some
other guy threw down a gauntlet and challenged me first, rather than
the other way around?


This is a forum about Java programming, not about me or any other person, and
centering a discussion around a person and their traits, including but
not limited to perceived/accused failings, is off-topic here anyway.

[insult deleted] If a person's views on a particular aspect of Java
programming, or software in general, are disagreed with by others,
you'd be stupid not to expect some debate.

Debating matters of Java programming. Not debating whether so-and-so
is or is not an idiot or anything obviously off-topic like that.

What's wrong with debating it anyway?

With debating the Java? Nothing. It's when the topic shifts from some
Java idea/code/book/Web site/whatever to one of the posters that the
derailment occurs. In other words, it's when someone decides to make
something personal, for whatever reason. A good indication is if
someone starts throwing the word "you" around, or a poster's name, for
some reason, and especially to accuse them of ***.

You don't debate, though; you treat any disagreement as a
deep personal attack and completely overreact every time.

I treat any disagreement where the disagreer makes it publicly
apparent that their opinion of me is low, and treats whatever I said
as if it is evidence of its author being a moron, as a personal
attack, and for good reason -- whoever it is just called me an idiot,
or at minimum implied it.

Consider:

Tw: <code snippet by way of example>
Se: Eh, interesting, though it might work better if you do it this
way: <code snippet>

No objection here; nothing objectionable here.

Tw: <code snippet by way of example>
At: <pages full of nitpicking and pedantry obviously meant to make me
look like an idiot>
Tw: <okay, gloves off arsehole!>

This time the responder is being an arsehole and I call them on it.
Also, their behavior poses a threat as people might start to believe
something nasty and untrue about me, and that obviously has to be
nipped in the bud, pronto.

There is nothing you can do about it, so your only two possible
choices are to accept it like the rest of us, or just leave.

I think I've adequately demonstrated that I have a third choice, which
is to defend myself and to vocally object to peoples' behavior
whenever they cross the line into demeaning me personally instead of
confining their debate, disagreement, or whatever to the Java or
whatever else is being discussed. There is no need to imply nasty
things about a person just because you disagree with something they
said, so why do people do it all the blasted time?

[assortment of unsympathetic and content-free crap deleted]

That's par for the course in Usenet, though. Interestingly enough,
there is usually a lot less of it in web-based forums, which for some
reason you are unusually opposed to.

Probably because of the same draconian moderation that is one of my
reasons for said opposition. (There are other reasons. Lack of a
unified interface and location; need of a separate login for every
damn one; proliferation of untrusted sites that know e-mail addresses
or other personal info; there's a single point of failure vs. Usenet's
distributed robustness...)

So someone criticized you in a Usenet discussion. So what?

So, a) it was rude and b) there's a danger people will believe
whatever nasty thing they said.
And c) it was unnecessary; they could keep their opinion of me private
and limit their public discourse to the proper topics, leaving
particular people out-of-bounds as regards subject matter for debate.
And d) it was off-topic. (Unless the newsgroup is alt.flame.whoever-
was-flamed...)

Believe it or not, nobody really cares! It won't
keep you from getting a job, or getting a date, or making friends.

Actually, a nasty rumor about a person that someone maliciously starts
spreading on the Internet is quite capable of having that exact type
of effect. I've seen it a time or two. I've been around for quite a
while, perhaps longer than you have.

you continually fan the flames by making more and
more outrageous long-winded comebacks.

I'm responding in my own defense. What the *** do you expect me to do
-- simply ignore the attack, and leave future readers of the archived
thread to see only one side of the story and, indeed, only the side
that is hostile to me? Yeah, right. That's handing my attacker victory
on a silver platter!

instead of sometimes even considering the possibility that for once you
might be wrong

Even if I were, it must not become a matter of public discussion. If
someone thinks I am and raises the matter in private that's one thing.
If they publicly accuse me, on the other hand, then I must defend
myself from their accusation lest its being allowed to stand
unchallenged have consequences down the road, not least of which would
be a public perception that I'm some sort of a fool and unable to get
anything right.

This is the attitude that my attackers have; that I'm a know-nothing
who is unable to get anything right is what they believe about me (or
perhaps it's their wishful thinking?). Understandably, I don't want
what they claim about me to predominate in the discussion or in the
record, and the simplest and surest way to ensure that it doesn't is
to follow up to any post pushing that belief with one of my own
pushing the opposite, or labeling the attack post as being inaccurate,
or whatever. That ensures an even and fine-grained mixture of their
anti-Twisted propaganda and counterpropaganda, and leaves the "score",
such as it is, tied.

But when you come back time and time again with
such intense anger, I can't help but keep firing back a bit.

Sure you can. It's called a killfile. Learn to use it.

I definitely agree with Daniel Pitts - you do know your stuff.

Then why, in the past, have you publicly accused me of being a know-
nothing who can't get anything right? Changed your mind I guess? Well
that is your prerogative, and given in which direction you changed I
can hardly complain. As long as it's sincere.

But that gets lost when you resort to anger and pointless arguing.

It's stuff that suggests I'm an idiot, e.g. "Only a fool believes
that!", that riles me up. Stick to debating the actual topic, not the
debaters themselves. This is comp.lang.java.programmer, not
alt.twisteds.iq.speculation.d; I am not up for debate -- Java is.

Like, seriously, why
is it such a big deal if you get "the last word" in an Internet
argument?

I could ask that of a bunch of people here. Starting with you.

I don't believe your life is so empty that the end-all be-
all of your day is Usenet spats, so why do you act as if it is?

It's the potential ripple effect if I permit a nasty internet rumor to
spread unchallenged that I'm concerned about. As I mentioned above,
I've seen it before; people have had serious crimps put in their
lifestyle because of rampant rumors about them spreading, online or
off. Nasty backbiting rumors about students are occasionally the cause
of a suicide, for God's sake; and there are several documented cases
of people losing their jobs and/or finding it hard to get a job when a
rumor about either their personal life or their competency in their
field got going and spiraled out of control.

Expecting people to not criticize you on a Usenet group is simply
unrealistic.

Why? I see no logical reason why people cannot confine any criticism
to matters impersonal, such as code under debate. Dragging a person
into it and threatening that person's reputation seems pointless as
well as rude. Why do it at all? Stick to discussing the Java.

[calls me names]

And you still seem incapable of being 100% civil. I wonder if it's not
even voluntary? I've heard of something called Tourette's Syndrome
(sp?) that can have effects like that -- you're typing away and
suddenly embed something nasty in what you're writing for no reason
your conscious mind can apprehend, and maybe don't even know it until
you've hit Send. More likely, it's just that assholes have to struggle
and maintain a mighty effort to act nice for any substantial length of
time and streaks of their natural personality still show through here
and there. :P

When I sent that email, I really was seeking a truce.

An easy way to seek a truce with me is to not post about me. You can
even follow up to a posting by me, so long as you don't say or imply
anything about its author in that followup. Unlike some people, I
won't viciously attack first; I may only become hostile when called
into question regarding something I'd posted in good faith.

[snip]

Conclusion is derived from a false premise and is therefore
nonsensical. :P

.