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I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

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Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#41

Post by tzs »

gnosis wrote: post #32
kprobst wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> techrights.org That's where I stopped reading, but I'll say this: Nowhere in the FSF's critique of the MCP is it mentioned whether or not the promise itself is legally binding. From a bunch of people who are supposed to be legal experts. What does that tell you?

Whether this "Promise" is actually worth much depends on much more than just the question of its legal legitimacy, as you'd have learned if you actually bothered to read the articles. But, as far as that particular issue is concerned, as the techrights article points out, "It may become legally binding ... if used as a challenge in court. But of course it does actually need to be tested in court /first/."

That "argument" makes no legal sense.

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#42

Post by kprobst »

gnosis wrote: post #32
kprobst wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> techrights.org That's where I stopped reading, but I'll say this: Nowhere in the FSF's critique of the MCP is it mentioned whether or not the promise itself is legally binding. From a bunch of people who are supposed to be legal experts. What does that tell you?

Whether this "Promise" is actually worth much depends on much more than just the question of its legal legitimacy, as you'd have learned if you actually bothered to read the articles. But, as far as that particular issue is concerned, as the techrights article points out, "It may become legally binding ... if used as a challenge in court. But of course it does actually need to be tested in court /first/."

Yes well, I could have used the same argument against the GPL back in the day. And really, I don't need to read through an article by someone who declared the Mono project "dead" a few months ago because he couldn't find the SVN repository. Or spams Reddit endlessly. Not to mention the years of insults and ideological attacks on various FOSS people.

In any case, you might want to look up the legal term estoppel.

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#43

Post by yock »

gnosis wrote: post #31
tzs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost all credibility by citing techrights (AKA boycott novell).

"Argumentum ad Hominem: the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument."

Your character wasn't attacked, your credibility was. It's perfectly legitimate to question your credibility if the questioner believes your source to be biased.

An ad Hominem attack would be calling you stupid for linking the biased source. That didn't happen.

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#44

Post by tzs »

gnosis wrote: post #31
tzs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost all credibility by citing techrights (AKA boycott novell).

"Argumentum ad Hominem: the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument."

You cited a site that routinely makes claims either without citing sources, or with cites to sources that contradict those claims. To a large part, it appears to simply make up stuff, and does not issue corrections when its errors are pointed out.

Citing Boycott Novell about software (or about anything, actually) is about equivalent of citing your Astrologer in a science argument.

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#45

Post by S_A_P »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #39
S_A_P wrote: post #33

OOOH I was so wanting to tell the OP What is so hard about this??? //assume some sorta IEnumerable derivitive IEnumerable bar = new IEnumerable () { obj1, obj2, obj3, obj4, ...}; var accumulator = bar.TakeWhile(x => x.property == someValue); but then I saw the .NET 2.0 timeframe. But even with .NET 2 you had generics which makes things pretty easy. But then again, he/she is ranting so I should just ignore him/her. It…

I suspect they were using .NET 1.x at the time, which would explain a lot.

I initially thought that as well, but the post did mention generics.

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#46

Post by j_baker »

I learned something a long time ago. It's far, far easier to dismiss others' code as "complex", "unmaintainable", or "clever" than it is to try and understand the code well enough to figure out whether that code was written that way for a valid reason. It's true whether you're new and approaching a codebase for the first time or whether you're reviewing someone else's code.

And no, I'm not saying that it's ok for code to be overly complex or unmaintainable. I'm saying that your first impression of code is probably wrong and you need to understand it before you dismiss it.

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#47

Post by Helianthus16 »

robinduckett wrote: post #6

Asked me to sign in to Google Groups. Closed tab.

I do not understand why giving feedback about the usability of the link deserves downvotes. I didn't even understand what had happened when I was suddenly at a google log-in, shrugged, and closed the tab.

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#48

Post by gnosis »

yock wrote: post #43
gnosis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Argumentum ad Hominem: the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument."

Your character wasn't attacked, your credibility was. It's perfectly legitimate to question your credibility if the questioner believes your source to be biased. An ad Hominem attack would be calling you stupid for linking the biased source. That didn't happen.

The ad hominem was made against techrights, not against me.

I didn't even make an argument. I just linked to a few articles that criticized Microsoft's "Promise".

Did tsz address the substance of techrights' argument? No. He just smeared them by implying that merely citing an article by them would make me lose credibility.

That is a perfect example of an ad hominem.

Attacking me was more of a case of shooting the messenger.

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#49

Post by gnosis »

tzs wrote: post #44
gnosis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Argumentum ad Hominem: the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument."

You cited a site that routinely makes claims either without citing sources, or with cites to sources that contradict those claims. To a large part, it appears to simply make up stuff, and does not issue corrections when its errors are pointed out. Citing Boycott Novell about software (or about anything, actually) is about equivalent of citing your Astrologer in a science argument.

You keep making ad hominems against techrights rather than addressing the substance of their argument.

Why don't you actually address what they wrote in their article?

Re: I finally understand why I'm not allowed to use Lisp

#50

Post by j_baker »

rorrr wrote: post #20

Kudos to his manager for actually looking at the code and recognizing the problem. Maintainable code is extremely important. Just keep your code simple. Adding another layer of abstraction instead of writing a simple and readable loop (if the language doesn't have accumulators) is not a good solution. I've seen this too many times. Smart developers write complex code, just because they can (and often it does make it…

> Smart developers write complex code, just because they can (and often it does make it shorter), but then mid- and junior-level developer struggle with it.

You know, I can't help but be reminded of Harrison Bergeron when I read this. I'm waiting for the day when someone comes up with a handicap for programmers so that we can all write code with the same ability as the least intelligent and least experienced members of our teams.

Did it ever occur to you that there might be a method to smarter developers' madness? I mean, maybe they write code the way they do because, you know, they're smart and know something you don't?

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