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way easier to understand complex syntax than reading yet another foo(bar) example.
The question I’d pose to the author is, what would he think of a book using examples he disagrees with? Let’s say for advocating for arming every American or against gay marriage. The vast majority arguing like the author are not ok with this - it’s only good if the content fits their world view.
Yeah, this is a good point. Sure, you can put the examples you want in your book. I think it's your own form of personal expression, and maybe you can move hearts and souls in this way. But you have to own it. Some people might not buy your stuff. Others will go out of their way to buy your stuff. Own the consequences to your speech. If a white nationalist released a book in the same way... I wouldn't buy it. They mi…
It's not a very good point. It hinges on the idea that the author wouldn't want to read a book that did the same but had a different political leaning. There is no indication whatsoever that this is the case and the OP in this case is essentially banking on the fact that most people will assume with him that that's the case.
I realize this is from 2000 but why would anyone think this person's trite and wholly conventional political opinions are in any way interesting or noteworthy? Strange psychology this guy has, like he's just trying to rattle off as many "controversial" "issues" as he can name, with no regard for his readership... the whole thing comes across as juvenile and narcissistic.
I would think so because Feuerstein's examples had shown that many people distracted by examples, that means that they are greatly interested by politics. If they didn't care, they would not notice the nature of examples.
The other side is readers are unable to deal with their interest to politics and to not be distracted from the main topic of the book. The goal of book is not to teach readers to concentrate on what they are doing, so maybe dull examples would be more appropriate.
I think I disagree with him here. I tend to think that examples like his (polarizing topics) are distracting to the message of the content. I teach students, and they are, quite literally, paying me for my knowledge and experience about that subject, not for me to distract everyone with my personal opinions about unrelated issues. I doubt that any of them even know my political beliefs.
However, I think the overall point he makes is worth some consideration. Many technical books (consciously or unconsciously on part of the author) frame software as something that primarily satisfies commercial or business interests. If you want, that in itself is a pretty polarising agenda, and I often found myself moaning when reading yet another database book that gives "managing employees" as an example. Why not use something mostly unbiased, such as "invitations for your birthday party"?
That being said, I also agree with the author on the lack of public discourse in North America. I recently moved to Canada and I am astounded by how little politics are discussed here, even in those places where they should be discussed (e.g., take a look at the trifle on the CBC News website "Politics" section). Democracy lives from talking about controversial matters, and I always get angry at people suggesting "not to talk about these things at work (or family dinner for that matter)". This is not how we move things forward! This is how I radically changed my mind on many matters over the course of years. So, I'd suggest that we should embrace the extremes, discuss them in a civilised manner, and meet somewhere in the middle. Avoiding these topics altogether is only strengthening polarisation. Whether a book about technology is the right place to do so, is rightly open for debate.
I think I disagree with him here. I tend to think that examples like his (polarizing topics) are distracting to the message of the content. I teach students, and they are, quite literally, paying me for my knowledge and experience about that subject, not for me to distract everyone with my personal opinions about unrelated issues. I doubt that any of them even know my political beliefs.
Different people write books for very different reasons, with very different styles. Some want to maximize their profits. Some want to be formal, and 100% focused on the core-topic. Some want to please every single potential reader. And some see it as an avenue for self-expression and having some "fun" on the side. The author probably knows that his writing style is going to turn off a number of potential readers, wh…
If the author wants to write a book with an inbuilt smaller audience more power to him - the more extreme it gets then presumably the smaller the audience gets.
Perhaps the problem to many is that this approach interrupts the flow necessary for fast learning. When I read a technical tome, I'm trying to understand the technical content as rapidly as I can. Trying to consider the political points, even if I agree with them, would greatly slow my learning via distraction and thus would inhibit the reason I paid for the book. It does feel a little misleading, like a bait and switch, if I had to pay for the book and this wasn't made clear somewhere: "I paid for SQL but I got political assertions instead that I could not easily skip."
I do agree that there is inadequate real political discourse, but this doesn't seem like a solution. But it's a free country, write it and see who wants to be your audience.
The question I’d pose to the author is, what would he think of a book using examples he disagrees with? Let’s say for advocating for arming every American or against gay marriage. The vast majority arguing like the author are not ok with this - it’s only good if the content fits their world view.
> The vast majority arguing like the author are not ok with this Your critique isn't very strong when it hinges on supposing something that is not supported by the text, merely by hyperbolic "whatabouts" that you assume the answer you wan't to critique. You're putting the author in a box rather than engaging with the words that they wrote.
Allow me to reframe the question: if you’re fine with the book as-written, would you still be fine with it if it expressed the opposite political views?
Relational databases are about relations. The trite little employee/department examples we've all seen before work because most people learning about databases immediately can understand a whole bunch of different relations that can occur here. You can think about concrete problems you might want to solve using that data -- figuring out who has to do annual reviews of what employee, doing payroll, etc. You can get a book's worth of mileage just adding things to that simple set of tables.
Meanwhile, in this example -- if the ICJ wanted to make a database of war criminals, this isn't close to how they'd do it. Storing the sort of data in the example... using Excel might be overkill, you could do that in the text editor of your choice. This isn't even a toy problem. It's not a simplified version of the real thing for teaching purposes, it's a polemic slapped in the middle of a bunch of boilerplate SQL for no other reason than because the author is bored of writing SQL tutorials and is spicing it up by throwing in a bunch of polemics. There's no connection between the material there and what the user is supposed to be learning. It's distracting. It can be nothing but distracting.
If you want to say that using business-oriented examples propagates a certain sort of politics, fine (although nobody is using Oracle for anything else, the license costs rule it out for hobbyist products). But make your examples illuminate what you want to teach, not distract from it.
I realize this is from 2000 but why would anyone think this person's trite and wholly conventional political opinions are in any way interesting or noteworthy? Strange psychology this guy has, like he's just trying to rattle off as many "controversial" "issues" as he can name, with no regard for his readership... the whole thing comes across as juvenile and narcissistic.
The guy has an ideology, he wants it to inform his writing. You may disagree with the ideology, but the simple fact of your disagreement doesn't mean it's incoherent.