Richard Fish wrote:
On 9/29/06, Bob Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On 9/29/06, Bob Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > it's true from Duncan's perspective because that's the way it
*feels* to
> > him. In the end that's just feel good rationalization and total
> bullshit.
>
> Ok, so now you are saying that Duncan's opinion is wrong. You don't
> respect Duncan's opinion, but you expect us to respect yours? I call
> hypocrite.
Nice strawman, I've never said, or implied that I didn't respect
Duncan's
opinion. In fact just the opposite, I've specifically told him that I
believe he has thought a lot about this, and that I believe he is
sincere.
Then I apologize. I gathered that "total bullshit" was in reference
to Duncan's beliefs.
No, I've always thought Duncan was sincere, and that he had given this a
great deal of thought.. The total bullshit remark was my disdain for the
practice (by some people) of advocating that no one should necessarily
have to support their opinions and the terms they use to express them
with real logic and evidence, in effect saying that anything goes, and
it's all okay as long as it's "what you feel," I think that's
intellectually bankrupt.
When was the last time that you personally submitted a *patch* for
some open
source app/utility/driver?
Not really relevant to this discussion, but:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.devel/39777
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.alsa.devel/40207
Another example: It would take me a very long time to fix a problem
with a
SCSI driver, compared to someone who works on SCSI drivers regularly.
Would
*you* want to pay for the many extra hours of troubleshooting due to my
inexperience with <fill in blank> type of code?
Well the alsa patches above did take me dozens of hours to figure out.
Much of that was figuring out how the alsa driver worked, studying
the Intel HDA specification, and fiddling with own hardware. So yes,
it can take an amazing amount of time.
The point is, anybody _can_ do it, if they are willing to invest the
time and effort into it. It is very very much like learning a foreign
language. I don't speak German...so I am totally dependant upon a
translator if I want to communicate with someone who speaks only
German. But should I not be able to find a translator willing to work
for what I am willing to pay, I always have the option of learning to
speak German myself.
I suppose it comes down how one values being technically correct versus
what actually happens in the real world. Personally I tend to be more
practical, but certainly the world needs people who stick to the exact
letter of the law, as we do of course need some accountants and lawyers.
That being said, I can't resist making the tangential and totally off
topic comment that I think America in general, has gone waaaaay too far
toward the *exact letter of the law* side. Zero tolerance, mandatory
sentences, and just the general "climate" of the society has removed so
much of the decision making and discretion that was available in the
past. It has been removed at all levels of government, everybody from
grade school principles, to circuit court judges, have almost no choice
in how to handle the situations and cases that come before them.. Thus
we are in a society where: a student is suspended for giving another
student aspirin, a 19 yr old is a registered sex offender for having
consensual sex with his 16yr old girlfriend, and you can be sent to
prison for life for stealing a slice of pizza.. I hope the pendulum
starts to swing the other way, and at least some of this madness gets
reversed, but to be honest, I'm not very optimistic.
All code is not the same, and software engineers are not all
interchangeable.
Heh, try telling that to management at ${mycompany}! ;-P
Are you kidding, it has taken me years to explain just some of it to my
wife [:-)
--
Regards
Bob Young
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