<clipped> > At least Bill experiments with ways to rephrase and reformulate these > points, and persuade people who disagree with his perspective > of their wisdom, mostly without rancor---that's what's to his > credit. (I half expect him now to go point-by-point through > my list of gross oversimplifications to point out that each > one is a gross oversimplification. ;-) )
Not oversimplifications, but distortions. More bait for the very rephrasing you're hinting is excessive! > My points are similarly few and doubtless easily caricatured > as well, and I often fail to match Bill's earnestness, but I > have made a conscious effort lately to post only once in a > while, because no matter how hard I try rational discourse > (usually about the war in > Iraq) or throwing out a new idea (like my contrary views on > trade and taxes), the only person who ever stands up to the > challenge consistently is Bill (with Jim Eddins chiming in > occasionally with his outstanding wit, and Dominic Burford > pointing out when I get rhetorically too near his pain > tolerance level). ;) I really don't understand the big picture with taxes and trade well enough to add anything useful. I am listening to your, Jim's and other views, just not sure what to say yet. But don't take my lack of input as disinterest, it's just that I don't have the urge to "say something anyway" when I don't know what I'm talking about - which relates to the complaint of this thread. <clipped> > Every time I hear the "Oh, woe is OT!" lament I can't help > but wonder how it would be different if that energy was > actually used to raise the level of discussion, rather than > just bemoan or condemn it and blame one or two people for > scaring away the so-called, self-proclaimed smart folk. People who actually design and develop software systems are smart. It takes a combination of skills, a great deal of knowledge and a finely-tuned mind - among other attributes - to be a practitioner in this trade. Such people also aren't the most tolerant and patient in the world. They must deal every day with unforgiving machines, an environment that conditions the mind to hone in on the real problem at hand, not the symptoms or scuttlebutt. This only becomes more true as systems invariably get larger and more complex. My point is that it's very hard to get and keep the attention of folks like these. Invite them to a forum and maybe they'll try it, but when they see that too much of their time is being eaten by voluminous chatter, they leave for more fertile ground. I'm not suggesting that all of the people who have left did so for any one reason, but I do see this as one such. Another would be the plight of FoxPro itself (despite efforts to point out that on the world front, a tool like FoxPro hasn't even started to gain traction; but I digress). Back to the major point I'm trying to make: that ProFox is a developer's forum. That's why we joined and participate. As such, our expectation is to mingle with like-minded folks. By 'like-minded', I don't mean of the same opinions, but of roughly similar background, intellect and trail-by-fire experience. In a sense, we're trying to climb the mountain of understanding, not only of technology and computer systems, but of philosophy, psychology, sociology and even finance. We welcome questions and opinions from interested people on these tracks, of course, and the more the better; but we're not seeing more people getting involved, we're seeing less - and of the less, we're seeing more. That is, when we want to hear more from others, we're actually hearing more from less. The imagery I have is "time-share". People have only so much time to invest in ProFox and OT, and when they see that time is being wasted, they look elsewhere. Put it this way: if I were looking to degrade ProFox/OT and make people go away, one pretty-sure way of doing that would be to send the list an email for every brain-fart that pops into my head. We have one mechanic, the filter, to defend against this creeping problem, and I do use it in one case. But I'm reluctant to expand that list because it's only so effective (leads others to think that I acquiesce when I'm not even listening), and in the case of Mike, sometimes he's funny and sometimes provocative. But, again, when I look at those stats, I see a reason why other people that we want to hear from have left. Bill > > - Bob _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
