On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 05:25:08 +0200, Georg Wrede wrote:

>>>Such understanding will make peeves mysteriously shrink, and make you feel better and healthier. Not to mention, it'll make you stop beating your wife and the kid next door.
>> 
>> I assume that was an attempt at a joke, and you didn't actually *try* to libel me by writing that offensive falsehood.
> 
> First, it was addressed to the _next_ potential peever. Second, working on it till one understands will improve one's own being. Third, the last sentence was (admittedly a strongly formulated) reminder to check if one's problems are not just related to D, since aggression on one venue often has its roots elsewhere.

And you expect that by publicly implying that I'm generally aggressive is helpful? I don't need that.

-- 
Derek
18/12/2006 3:16:55 PM

Derek Parnell wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 05:25:08 +0200, Georg Wrede wrote:
> 
> 
>>>>Such understanding will make peeves mysteriously shrink, and make you feel better and healthier. Not to mention, it'll make you stop beating your wife and the kid next door.
>>>
>>>I assume that was an attempt at a joke, and you didn't actually *try* to
>>>libel me by writing that offensive falsehood.
>>
>>First, it was addressed to the _next_ potential peever. Second, working on it till one understands will improve one's own being. Third, the last sentence was (admittedly a strongly formulated) reminder to check if one's problems are not just related to D, since aggression on one venue often has its roots elsewhere.
> 
> And you expect that by publicly implying that I'm generally aggressive is
> helpful? I don't need that. 

No, Derek, I did not.

Just want to apologize about this "cute" reponse in that last post.  It doesn't sit well with me. It was a lame attempt at trying to lighten the situation.

A whole lot of us have identified with Stewarts points several times over in the past, so it's nothing new.

Despite this, I hope Walter keeps plowing away. He's done a great job so far, and I hope in the future we can continue to be a steady encouragement to him in the various ways we're good at.

At the same time, I think keeping him honest is part of that task... doggedly yet respectfully. :)

-JJR

On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 20:21:23 -0800, Derek Parnell <derek@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 05:25:08 +0200, Georg Wrede wrote:
>
>>>> Such understanding will make peeves mysteriously shrink, and make you
>>>> feel better and healthier. Not to mention, it'll make you stop beating
>>>> your wife and the kid next door.
>>>
>>> I assume that was an attempt at a joke, and you didn't actually *try* to
>>> libel me by writing that offensive falsehood.
>>
>> First, it was addressed to the _next_ potential peever. Second, working
>> on it till one understands will improve one's own being. Third, the last
>> sentence was (admittedly a strongly formulated) reminder to check if
>> one's problems are not just related to D, since aggression on one venue
>> often has its roots elsewhere.
>
> And you expect that by publicly implying that I'm generally aggressive is
> helpful? I don't need that.
>


Guys? Peace?

Derek, you're most certainly not the only "other" one that's been annoyed with Walter's habits.  Georg, you did bring up a sore spot in your first post by mentioning Derek.  I found it a little confusing until you clarified yourself in the next post -- especially the wife and kid part.  I know you both are respectable fellows. Can you please forgive and forget?

I think all this thread has shown is that, like it or not, we are all susceptable to folly now and again.  So now not even Walter has to feel singled out. :)

Yes, Walter's faults do play an important role in the D sega; yes, the bad and good have brought D to where it is now. But, the long and short of it is that Walter could not have succeeded without a community of people -- and silent experts, no less -- pounding on him over and over.  Without that community, D is nothing.  As marvelously determined as Walter is, he couldn't have done it alone and still cannot.  It's a symbiotic relationship, no less.  Patting Walter on the back now and again is a nice gesture and a worthy one, but please realize that his reward is built in.  If D becomes everywhere prevalent, which will be the more satisfying to Walter: the "Thankyou Walter's" and "Your a smart chap's" or the mere knowledge that he designed a massively successful language?

You see? The reward and motivation are built in.  Not to say he doesn't deserve a "thanyou" often, but I think we can safely bet that the reward is in the result.

The best we can hope for is that D will succeed despite these faults, that the infatiguely pounding process continues with a modicum of grace, and that D continues to blossom as result of that refining process.

-JJR

I disagree.

I call what you've named "code review", but mainly to make all code consistent in style.  This is not only because consistency is very important, e.g. for grep even, but moreover for another reason.

It greatly helps you learn the code.

If you think these people were just changing spaces to tabs, or the other way around, they were obviously wasting their time - especially if that took a week!

But if they were using this time to learn the code (and not just a small tiny subsection of it like most developers) this is of much greater gain for them and the project in the long-run.  A week is a small price to pay, and will make the code and project better in the future by quite a lot.

For any long-term project, I'd much rather a developer I managed spent a week learning a code base than a week trying to fix (and most likely having difficulty fixing) bugs during the same time frame.

In my opinion.  I would hesitate to so quickly slug people who do code reviews and coding style reviews if you don't know the full purpose of them.  Assuming there was a greater purpose, which there at least should have been.

-[Unknown]


> Rant,
> 
> All these seem petty to me, like complaining about someones formating style.  If its useful then that's 100% better then not having it.
> 
> Ok, maybe slightly off topic:
> 
> Just my opinion,
> Knew one guy who spent a week reformatting (no design patterns just tabs and naming conversions) everyone else code, and how did that help the project?  As a further frustration some other coder who decided that his formating style was superior so re-did the entire code style again a month later.  While these programmers where obviously not professional I wonder how far the project would have got if their time had actually been spend fixing bugs or adding features.
> 
> Its all about making efficient use of ones time. Spending hours browsing fixing typos is not a good use of time.  And it won't save much time in the future (unlike good conventions on code design).  Also who knows when the page will completely change.  Users who spot things like spelling mistakes should report them, and Walter can get to them when he's working on that page.
> 
> Now playing devils advocate now, people can be petty, and unfortunately  D needs every user it can get.  I find this gen is strong with programmers.  Therefore the quality of the D website (spelling ect...) can turn these people types away.
> 
> -Joel

Tom S wrote:
> Stewart Gordon wrote:
>> It's time to make a list of Walter's habits that continually annoy us. 
> 
> For the most part, Bilbo Baggins. I can't think of a more annoying hobbit of Walter's !

Did you say "Bilbo Baggins"?  In that case, here's a follow-up to a much needed dose of levity in this thread:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1189977381292772054

(Personally, I think Samwise is *much* more annoying than Bilbo.)

-- 
- EricAnderton at yahoo

Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
> "Stewart Gordon" <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:elvmdi$1t5g$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> 
> While I agree that Walter _does_ dodge issues well and often, I usually find myself cringing more reading your posts than Walter's.  You're so full of yourself, you're going to have to get some buckets to catch the excess. 
> 
> 

"You're so full of yourself, you're going to have to get some buckets to catch the excess."

That phrase is brilliant.

I have no further comment, I just think that phrase is brilliant :P

 - Gregor Richards

What is is with you people?  OK, so a few of you did start to take it
seriously in the end.  But still, what is all the joking about?

I intended this to be a serious, potentially constructive criticism of
Walter's way of operating.  The points I made generally have something
in common: they can be helped, at least to an extent, with a bit of effort.

The fact that Walter is only one person of course cannot be helped.
That he's decided to do it practically single-handedly is of course
another matter.  But he isn't totally ignoring other people's
contributions, so it isn't a matter of wanting to do it with no help at
all.  On this basis, there ought to be more implementation of both ideas
and fixes from users than there would be otherwise, as he doesn't have
the overhead of coordinating the efforts of his internal development team.

Moreover, by postponing certain things, he's actually creating more
overhead for himself.  See

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/announce/960.html
(in particular, my first followup)

And to those bringing up the statement that we haven't paid for this product, in a sense we have.  We've paid with the time spent evaluating D and DMD, reporting bugs and offering suggestions.

Moreover, freedom of speech doesn't come at any price.  If somebody came back from town and reported that there was a lot of anti-social behaviour or something of that ilk going on, would you tell them to shut up because they haven't paid for the privilege of walking through town?

Stewart.

Stewart Gordon wrote:
> What is is with you people?  OK, so a few of you did start to take it
> seriously in the end.  But still, what is all the joking about?

Now is not the time for this. Wait till the 1.0 dust has settled, which would be about late February or early March.

> And to those bringing up the statement that we haven't paid for this product, in a sense we have.  We've paid with the time spent evaluating D and DMD, reporting bugs and offering suggestions.

This is Walter's language. Period.

If someone contributes, they understand that such contributions are considered only if or when it suits Walter.

If that doesn't suit some folks, they're free to go.

> Moreover, freedom of speech doesn't come at any price. 

Freedom of speech doesn't exist. It's a phrase mostly used in the U.S. I can't go tell the big guy he's ugly. If I do, he'll kick my teeth. On a banquet with G. Bush, you can't go tell him what you think of his foreign policy. If you do, secret service men will take you away.

Here you actually can try to raise mutiny, time after time. But most of us hope that you'd go create your own language empire and make your own rules of Free Speech there.

> If somebody came back from town and reported that there was a lot of anti-social behaviour or something of that ilk going on, would you tell them to shut up because they haven't paid for the privilege of walking through town?

No. But I hope I could tell the anti-social one to either behave or go away.

Stewart Gordon wrote:
> What is is with you people?  OK, so a few of you did start to take it
> seriously in the end.  But still, what is all the joking about?

There's a thing called 'tact', something of which you are severely deficient. Over the years I've been involved with D I've seen you make several tactless posts to this group, bitching when your issues aren't fixed in a new release, pushing Walter to look again at one point or another. There's a right way and a wrong way to say things. Titling a post "Walter's annoying habits" is quite the wrong way.

I suggest you fix your own annoying habits first. Learn some tact, how to be civil rather than insulting, how to make requests rather than demands. Then perhaps people will take you seriously instead of viewing you as a pompous windbag.