* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics [not found] ` <94rkj1$d4r$1@nnrp1.deja.com> @ 2001-01-26 16:31 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-26 20:24 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-26 16:31 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <94rkj1$d4r$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, tom_swiftjr@my-deja.com wrote: > > Perhaps that's merely a reflection of the state of > advancement of mathematics > when you were a lad? No, just a reflection of relative importance. Note however that I had one mathematics class a day from the age of 4 to 13 (when I left England, and this would have continued for years). I fear the situation is not so fine here in the good old USA, where many high school students do not have to take four years of math :-( Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics [not found] ` <94rkj1$d4r$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 2001-01-26 16:31 ` Latin and other irrelevant topics Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-26 20:24 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-27 5:12 ` Brian Rogoff 1 sibling, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-26 20:24 UTC (permalink / raw) tom_swiftjr@my-deja.com writes: > > In England, from the age of 7-13 I spent 10 class hours a week > > learning Latin, and only 5 learning mathematics, when I > > was 10, I added 5 hours a week of Greek :-) That's the way > > things were done then. > Perhaps that's merely a reflection of the state of advancement of > mathematics when you were a lad? There's hardly any relationship between the advancement of mathematics and the math taught at school. Many important things have been discovered during the last few decades, but I doubt that (e.g.) the classification of finite simple groups is relevant for school teaching (even the trivial classification of finite simple abelian groups is way beyound what it is taught at schools, at least here in Germany). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-26 20:24 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-27 5:12 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-27 13:58 ` Pat Rogers ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-27 5:12 UTC (permalink / raw) On 26 Jan 2001, Florian Weimer wrote: > tom_swiftjr@my-deja.com writes: > > > > In England, from the age of 7-13 I spent 10 class hours a week > > > learning Latin, and only 5 learning mathematics, when I > > > was 10, I added 5 hours a week of Greek :-) That's the way > > > things were done then. > > > Perhaps that's merely a reflection of the state of advancement of > > mathematics when you were a lad? > > There's hardly any relationship between the advancement of mathematics > and the math taught at school. Sad but true. > Many important things have been > discovered during the last few decades, but I doubt that (e.g.) the > classification of finite simple groups is relevant for school teaching Here I think we disagree. I think that there is quite a bit of modern mathematics that could be brought to the high school student and the undergraduate (even the ones who aren't majoring in mathematics) that is highly relevant. Non-standard analysis, differential forms (can be introduced with multivariable calculus), category theory (a high school level approach in the book by Lawvere and Schanuel, linear programming, really the list is pretty long. Personally, I'd much rather spend time studying math than studying Latin; the latter seems a waste of time, like being forced to read Shakespeare. De gustibus non est disputandum. ;-) -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-27 5:12 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-27 13:58 ` Pat Rogers 2001-01-27 16:25 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-28 0:08 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Pat Rogers @ 2001-01-27 13:58 UTC (permalink / raw) "Brian Rogoff" <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote in message news:Pine.BSF.4.21.0101262056580.20133-100000@shell5.ba.best.com... <snip> > Personally, I'd much rather spend time studying math than studying Latin; > the latter seems a waste of time, like being forced to read Shakespeare. > De gustibus non est disputandum. ;-) IMHO reading Shakespeare is one of the most valuable things a human being can do. Why? Because we are emotional as well as intellectual creatures. Sure, maths may be more applicable in our technical activities, but the number of technical people I know who have either a) never been able to have a serious relationship, or b) couldn't make the ones they have had last for any length of time, suggest that having some knowledge of how emotions work would have saved them serious hardship. While that information may be available in psychology classes (or Machiavelli's "The Prince":), I'd rather read Shakespeare's prose. If there is anything about the human condition worth saying, he has said it, and said it better than anyone else. --- Patrick Rogers Consulting and Training in: http://www.classwide.com Real-Time/OO Languages progers@classwide.com Hard Deadline Schedulability Analysis (281)648-3165 Software Fault Tolerance ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-27 5:12 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-27 13:58 ` Pat Rogers @ 2001-01-27 16:25 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-28 0:09 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-28 0:08 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-27 16:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes: > > Many important things have been > > discovered during the last few decades, but I doubt that (e.g.) the > > classification of finite simple groups is relevant for school teaching > > Here I think we disagree. Not necessarily. I don't think it has to be that way, I was just describing the status quo here. In fact I hope that some day, modern mathematics and, more important, the joy of mathematics hit the schools (calculus is taught in most parts in Germany as if we were in the 18th or even 17th century, it's pretty confusing and has an aura as if it was a Dark Art). > I think that there is quite a bit of modern mathematics that could > be brought to the high school student and the undergraduate (even > the ones who aren't majoring in mathematics) that is highly > relevant. Many things are relevant, but the interest in mathematics is generally low among the students in engineering and computer science (at least that's my impression). As a result, most lecturers here seem to focus on the basic stuff and present it in a rigorous manner. > Non-standard analysis, differential forms (can be introduced with > multivariable calculus), category theory (a high school level > approach in the book by Lawvere and Schanuel, linear programming, > really the list is pretty long. To be honest, I don't think non-standard analysis and differential forms are really important (compared to the Lebesgue integral, which is relatively old and not often taught to undergrads), but early exposure to category theory is probably a good idea (after you have seen a bunch of algebraic structures, of course). But it's probably a bad idea to discuss such things with me because I'm heavily biased (I'm hardly interested in calculus and applied mathematics, but I'll admit that's the part which is relevant for most students). > Personally, I'd much rather spend time studying math than studying Latin; > the latter seems a waste of time, like being forced to read Shakespeare. The way I learned Latin at school was a bit similar to real mathematics, in fact more than math itself (we were taught the Latin grammar in a rather formal way, and math mostly consisted of very technical symbolic manipulations). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-27 16:25 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-28 0:09 ` Brian Rogoff 0 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-28 0:09 UTC (permalink / raw) On 27 Jan 2001, Florian Weimer wrote: > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes: > > I think that there is quite a bit of modern mathematics that could > > be brought to the high school student and the undergraduate (even > > the ones who aren't majoring in mathematics) that is highly > > relevant. > > Many things are relevant, but the interest in mathematics is generally > low among the students in engineering and computer science (at least > that's my impression). As a result, most lecturers here seem to focus > on the basic stuff and present it in a rigorous manner. I'd be happy with less rigor for CS/engineering types and more of what physicists call "galley proofs". Many (most?) people can't memorize formulae so having an idea as to how to derive a formula or theorem, even if it isn't completely rigorous, is probably better pedagogy. > > Non-standard analysis, differential forms (can be introduced with > > multivariable calculus), category theory (a high school level > > approach in the book by Lawvere and Schanuel, linear programming, > > really the list is pretty long. > > To be honest, I don't think non-standard analysis and differential > forms are really important (compared to the Lebesgue integral, which > is relatively old and not often taught to undergrads), I have the opposite view. Mastery of differential forms allows the student to get more quickly to advanced physics. Non-standard analysis is easier to understand than the theory of limits, at least for me. Real analysis, the course where you'd meet Lebesgue integration, is not necessary for undergraduate engineers at all. > exposure to category theory is probably a good idea (after you have > seen a bunch of algebraic structures, of course). But it's probably a > bad idea to discuss such things with me because I'm heavily biased I agree about the category theory, but I love talking with others who love maths, even if they love different parts ;-). > (I'm hardly interested in calculus and applied mathematics, but I'll > admit that's the part which is relevant for most students). Gasp! Understanding the infinitesimal calculus is the "pons asinorum" of engineering mathematics. Well, now I expect Robert Dewar to tell me that I've used "pons asinorum" incorrectly; just trying to keep this irrelevant, off topic thread on topic. > > Personally, I'd much rather spend time studying math than studying Latin; > > the latter seems a waste of time, like being forced to read Shakespeare. > > The way I learned Latin at school was a bit similar to real > mathematics, in fact more than math itself (we were taught the Latin > grammar in a rather formal way, and math mostly consisted of very > technical symbolic manipulations). I have a very strong continuous applied math background, and almost no Latin background whatsoever. Sounds like you were taught math by reading the reference manual rather than the rationale. -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-27 5:12 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-27 13:58 ` Pat Rogers 2001-01-27 16:25 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-28 0:08 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-28 3:51 ` Brian Rogoff ` (2 more replies) 2 siblings, 3 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-28 0:08 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101262056580.20133-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > like being forced to read Shakespeare. It's a shame to see an attitude like this. Anyone not able to appreciate Shakespeare is missing something pretty important in life (the technical junk we all spend so much time with is not an adequate substitute :-) And perhaps we should change the subject again ... Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-28 0:08 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-28 3:51 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-28 13:00 ` Pat Rogers ` (2 more replies) 2001-01-29 23:05 ` kopilovitch 2001-02-08 5:15 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Buz Cory 2 siblings, 3 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-28 3:51 UTC (permalink / raw) On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote: > In article > <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101262056580.20133-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > like being forced to read Shakespeare. > > It's a shame to see an attitude like this. Anyone not able to > appreciate Shakespeare is missing something pretty important > in life I don't think so. You're certainly entitled to choose to appreciate whatever you want, but it's a bit silly to make a sweeping statement like that. There are lots of things I don't appreciate, like opera, and country & western music. No doubt a C&W fan would make the same sort of remark about my disdain for his preferred art form as you Shakespeare freaks would make. There are more preferences in heaven and earth, Robert, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. :-) > (the technical junk we all spend so much time with > is not an adequate substitute :-) The insinuation that I'm a technical monomaniac is without any basis in reality. I read lots of nontechnical literature. The fact that I find Shakespeare's work shallow and boring means nothing. I do find it interesting that the Bard's fans get all worked up about it though. I've enjoyed a few Stephen King novels (more than Shakepseare!) but when someone says they don't like King I don't care. The Shakespeare worship phenomena fascinates me because it has taken on the trappings of religion, and when I reveal my distaste for this stuff someone like you or Pat Rogers will come out with a ridiculous generalization on the power of his words. It's almost like talking to Scientologists or ESTers. I spent a fair amount of time being forced to read this stuff and IMHO it sucks. If I really need to read verse there's always Vikram Seth :-) > And perhaps we should change the subject again ... Nah, this bizarre thread is really funny as it is, I love the way it changes from one topic to another. Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. Absit invidia... -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-28 3:51 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-28 13:00 ` Pat Rogers 2001-01-29 1:40 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 16:16 ` Stephen Leake 2 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Pat Rogers @ 2001-01-28 13:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Brian Rogoff" <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote in message news:Pine.BSF.4.21.0101271915410.28283-100000@shell5.ba.best.com... > On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote: > > In article > > <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101262056580.20133-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, > > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > > like being forced to read Shakespeare. > > > > It's a shame to see an attitude like this. Anyone not able to > > appreciate Shakespeare is missing something pretty important > > in life > > I don't think so. You're certainly entitled to choose to appreciate > whatever you want, but it's a bit silly to make a sweeping statement > like that. There are lots of things I don't appreciate, like opera, > and country & western music. No doubt a C&W fan would make the same sort > of remark about my disdain for his preferred art form as you Shakespeare > freaks would make. There are more preferences in heaven and earth, Robert, > than are dreamt of in your philosophy. :-) > > > (the technical junk we all spend so much time with > > is not an adequate substitute :-) > > The insinuation that I'm a technical monomaniac is without any basis > in reality. I read lots of nontechnical literature. The fact that I find > Shakespeare's work shallow and boring means nothing. There is some irony here. Firstly, that you did not write precisely what you meant: "Personally, I'd much rather spend time studying math than studying Latin; the latter seems a waste of time, like being forced to read Shakespeare. " > I do find it > interesting that the Bard's fans get all worked up about it though. I've > enjoyed a few Stephen King novels (more than Shakepseare!) but when > someone says they don't like King I don't care. The Shakespeare worship > phenomena fascinates me because it has taken on the trappings of religion, > and when I reveal my distaste for this stuff someone like you or Pat Rogers > will come out with a ridiculous generalization on the power of his > words. It's almost like talking to Scientologists or ESTers. And secondly, that you've made such an emotional response. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-28 3:51 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-28 13:00 ` Pat Rogers @ 2001-01-29 1:40 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 4:23 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-29 6:04 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 16:16 ` Stephen Leake 2 siblings, 2 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 1:40 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101271915410.28283-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > The Shakespeare worship Not a matter of worship, just appreciatation > and when I reveal my distaste for this stuff Perhaps you were badly introduced in school, which is a shame indeed! No one is saying you have to like Shakespeare, but we can be sorry that you are missing out :-) After all you may be missing something, and if you think Shakespeare is "shallow", most likely you are! One can dislike Shakespeare for many reasons, but a judgment that it is shallow almost certainly means that there is indeed something you are missing. That's not so surprising. It's hard work, and often introduced very badly in schools. Of course you can dismiss this as spoutings of elitist nonsense, but in this case there do seem to be a *rather* large number of spouters. Are you REALLY saying you see nothing to appreciate in Branagh's Henry V (please don't tell me you haven't seen it Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 1:40 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 4:23 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-29 5:29 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 17:34 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-29 6:04 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 2 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-29 4:23 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote: > In article > <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101271915410.28283-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > > The Shakespeare worship > > Not a matter of worship, just appreciatation As I said, there are many art forms which I appreciate, and many which I don't, but I don't jump up every time someone criticizes an author I like, since I realize that this is subjective. A very large fraction of the people I know who like Shakespeare don't possess similar detachment concerning this topic. > > and when I reveal my distaste for this stuff > > Perhaps you were badly introduced in school, which is a shame > indeed! No one is saying you have to like Shakespeare, but we > can be sorry that you are missing out :-) Are you a country and western music fan? If not consider having this discussion with an intelligent enthusiast of said art form, who can also point out the richness and range of human experience captured in C & W, and how much you'd are missing out on account of that C & W shaped gap in your heart :-). If you do like that loathsome stuff, please find something you don't like and try the same thought experiment. Quot homines, tot sententiae. > After all you may be missing something, and if you think Shakespeare is > "shallow", most likely you are! Possibly, but it seems you're back to making sweeping statements again, which is unfortunate. I suppose if I am shallow, then you shouldn't even bother continuing. > It's not clear how you arrive at such a conclusion, One can dislike > Shakespeare for many reasons, but a judgment that it is shallow almost > certainly means that there is indeed something you are missing. That's > not so surprising. It's hard work, and often introduced very > badly in schools. I'll look at one dimension, ethical values. Let's consider the works of of Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens. Do the values espoused by Clemens transcend the era of the author or are they for the most part mired in it? Now consider your beloved Bard. Would you answer that question the same way? As you can guess, I wouldn't. > Of course you can dismiss this as spoutings of elitist > nonsense, Yes, maybe that's a bit tougher than how I'd put it, but close enough. > but in this case there do seem to be a *rather* > large number of spouters. Surely that argument isn't convincing, least of all here, on comp.lang.ada? > Are you REALLY saying you see > nothing to appreciate in Branagh's Henry V (please don't > tell me you haven't seen it I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't seen it. I haven't owned a TV for a year and a half, and am not likely to get one either, so I don't imagine I'll ever see it. While I agree that this thread is not too bothersome given it's explicit irrelevance to Ada in the subject line, Pascal Obry's complaint is making me wonder if it wouldn't be better off in e-mail. If we were discussing the work of Nabokov, or even Thomas Tryon, I could probably swing it to Ada, alas Shakespeare just doesn't give me enough to work with. :-) Pascal, if you're truly bothered, I'll stop, but I hope that you'll apply the same stick to the many irrelevant posts that come up under mislabeled topics, or the many off-topic asides in relevant threads, etc. -- Brian (Anyone who can get the Thomas Tryon reference is truly well read, or has a good movie memory and seen lot's of movies ;-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 4:23 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-29 5:29 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 17:32 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-29 17:34 ` Pascal Obry 1 sibling, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 5:29 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101281924120.18672-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > Are you a country and western music fan? Yes, so snip the "if not" > If you do like that loathsome stuff Boy, we certainly have some strong negative feelings on things don't we? :-) > please find something you don't like and try the same > thought experiment. Actually I can't really think of a parellel -- something that is very widely acknowledged to be a worth while art form that I don't like ... hard to do -- and certainly not with the vehemence that you trot out :-) > Possibly, but it seems you're back to making sweeping > statements again, which is unfortunate. Well I think they are statements with which many would agree. > I suppose if I am shallow, then you shouldn't > even bother continuing. Please read posts carefully, no one said you were shallow ... > Now consider your beloved Bard Sorry, he is not my "beloved Bard", please don't assume that the rest of the world reacts with the vehemence you do in either direction. > > Are you REALLY saying you see > > nothing to appreciate in Branagh's Henry V (please don't > > tell me you haven't seen it > > I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't seen it. Oh that is a shame ... > I haven't owned a TV > for a year and a half, and am not likely to get one either, > so I don't imagine I'll ever see it. and that's even more of a shame, oh well .. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 5:29 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 17:32 ` Brian Rogoff 0 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-29 17:32 UTC (permalink / raw) I'll quickly reply here, but since the number of objectors to this thread is rising I suggest that my interlocutors continue by e-mail. Thanks to Robert's cunning mind though, we manage to drift back to Ada (the programming language Ada that is ;-) by the end of the mail. On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote: > In article > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > Are you a country and western music fan? > > Yes, so snip the "if not" > > > If you do like that loathsome stuff > > Boy, we certainly have some strong negative feelings on things > don't we? :-) It's a joke. Obviously many people like C&W, and that's OK with me. The difference is that I wasn't forced to listen to a long stream of C&W in high school, with some pompous blowhard (or snaggletoothed trailer-park redneck :) extolling its virtues to me, as was the case with Shakespeare. I did take one of those general "music appreciation" classes and sure enough there are musical forms I don't like. > > please find something you don't like and try the same > > thought experiment. > > Actually I can't really think of a parellel -- something that > is very widely acknowledged to be a worth while art form that > I don't like ... hard to do -- and certainly not with the > vehemence that you trot out :-) You should realize that what seems like vehemence to you may simply be playfulness to me. > > Possibly, but it seems you're back to making sweeping > > statements again, which is unfortunate. > > Well I think they are statements with which many would agree. Argumentum ad populum. > > I suppose if I am shallow, then you shouldn't > > even bother continuing. > > Please read posts carefully, no one said you were shallow ... There is no need to get legalistic, the insinuation was clear. If you want to get legalistic, I didn't say you said I was shallow, read the quoted statement again. > > Now consider your beloved Bard > > Sorry, he is not my "beloved Bard", please don't assume that > the rest of the world reacts with the vehemence you do in > either direction. I wouldn't be vehement if I hadn't been forced to study, read, and perform a fair amount of that stuff. One representative work from the author would have been enough. > > I haven't owned a TV > > for a year and a half, and am not likely to get one either, > > so I don't imagine I'll ever see it. > > and that's even more of a shame, oh well .. That I don't own a TV? Best move I've made in recent memory, I'd advise everyone to try it. :-) > In article <952hmb$niq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > In article > > > <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101271915410.28283-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, > > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > > > > The Shakespeare worship > > I have a question, and it even has a (slender) relevance to > Ada. Have you ever seen a Shakespeare play done by a really > good company? I don't know, since you haven't defined "a really good company". I do remember seeing (on TV) a performance of Hamlet with Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, if that means anything to you. > Perhaps not ... if not, then perhaps you are > making the same error that some people make when it comes > to Ada, dismissing it without really knowing much about it. How much does one need to study Ada before deciding that it isn't for them? The analogy you're making is difficult, but let's go with it. In the case of Ada, I parroted the commonly held beliefs about Ada (incidentally, held by *many* well known computer scientists at prominent universities like MIT and Stanford) until I actually used Ada for some smallish tasks and found I liked it much better than C, C++, or Java, or really, that I was able to accomplish tasks faster and more reliably using Ada than these other languages (which I knew far better BTW). So my current opinion of Ada is from usage, and entirely on tasks that would be considered small or medium-small. I didn't read the entire RM and Rationale and design documents before I decided that I liked Ada, and had a good idea of what kind of language it is. That seems to be what you'd have me do before I accepting my opinion on Shakespeare as acceptable. (BTW, good segue back to Ada ;-) > Going back to your question, about how I would react to an > art form I dislike, I can think of one, which is Heavy Metal > Rock (I don't dislike all Rock), but that means I don't listen > to it, which means I know nothing about it, Actually, you know you don't like it, which *is* something. Heavy metal doesn't appeal to you as a listener. Thank goodness, for a minute I thought you were going to tell me you like everything, even the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, or white noise. (FWIW, I actually like heavy metal, and Baroque music, and jazz... :) > which means that I would not give any judgment on its worth. I suspect that if your music teachers in school had focused a large fraction of their time on heavy metal, you might like it even less, and be willing to comment a bit more harshly :-) > When it comes to programming languages, it is amazing how > many people dismiss programming languages they know absolutely > nothing about. How many people do you know who in some sense > are experts in the PL field who don't know COBOL or VB, but > are quite sure that both these languages are junk. How about Ada? I could name names, but I've heard profound mistatements about our beloved Ada (it's a joke!) from professors who should know better. > Back to Shakespeare. It is one thing to say: "I really don't > appreciate Shakespeare, or understand what people see in him", Fair enough. I really don't appreciate Shakespeare, or understand what people see in him, and I resent having my time squandered studying his works to the exclusion of other potentially interesting works. That is how we got here from Latin, since some people consider that many hours spent on the study of Latin is suboptimal, seeing as time is limited and a language like Spanish or French (with a large living population of native speakers) is arguably more worthy of study. > Back to Programming Languages. It is one thing to say "I don't > really know language XXX, so I can't really make a judgment on > what it is good for", and quite another to say "language XXX > is a piece of junk" [without really knowing language XXX]. I've also heard people who knew less Shakespeare than I did tell me how great Shakespeare is, and how wrong I am to hold my opinion, just like I've heard people who know less about C++ or Ada than I do tell me that C++ is better than Ada! I have no doubt that someone can like C++ better than Ada (for example, I like automatic instantiation of template functions and wish Ada had a similar feature :) and that I can find something I like about Shakespeare (or country and western) but at some point you just have to be able to accept that intelligent people can disagree on some topics (well, not on Ada vs C++, that's where your analogy breaks down :-) -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 4:23 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-29 5:29 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 17:34 ` Pascal Obry 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2001-01-29 17:34 UTC (permalink / raw) Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes: > Pascal, if you're truly bothered, I'll stop, but I hope that you'll apply > the same stick to the many irrelevant posts that come up under mislabeled > topics, or the many off-topic asides in relevant threads, etc. No, I'm not! I must say that at this point it is quite entertaining ;) Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 1:40 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 4:23 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-29 6:04 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 17:39 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-29 18:53 ` David Starner 1 sibling, 2 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 6:04 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <952hmb$niq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article > <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101271915410.28283-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > > The Shakespeare worship I have a question, and it even has a (slender) relevance to Ada. Have you ever seen a Shakespeare play done by a really good company? Perhaps not ... if not, then perhaps you are making the same error that some people make when it comes to Ada, dismissing it without really knowing much about it. Going back to your question, about how I would react to an art form I dislike, I can think of one, which is Heavy Metal Rock (I don't dislike all Rock), but that means I don't listen to it, which means I know nothing about it, which means that I would not give any judgment on its worth. My son Keith has really broad musical tastes (and is very knowledgable -- he worked in the classical section of Tower for a number of years). When he was in high school, and I would arrive home, it was a toss up whether Mozart or some variety of loud rock music (I don't even know the genre well enough to know *exactly* what constitutes heavy metal :-) Once I came home, and it was the latter, and when I asked Keith to turn it down, he said "Dad! You have such narrow musical tastes!" When it comes to programming languages, it is amazing how many people dismiss programming languages they know absolutely nothing about. How many people do you know who in some sense are experts in the PL field who don't know COBOL or VB, but are quite sure that both these languages are junk. Back to Shakespeare. It is one thing to say: "I really don't appreciate Shakespeare, or understand what people see in him", and quite another to say "Shakespeare is shallow" without being a serious student of Shakespeare (no doubt there are some who *are* serious students, and who would claim him to be shallow -- their arguments would be interesting to listen to). Back to Programming Languages. It is one thing to say "I don't really know language XXX, so I can't really make a judgment on what it is good for", and quite another to say "language XXX is a piece of junk" [without really knowing language XXX]. Gosh, an Ada relevance of sorts in this thread (Pascal, if your news reader is still forcing you to actually read all these messages, then you can find the magic word :-) Robert Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 6:04 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 17:39 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-29 18:53 ` David Starner 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2001-01-29 17:39 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes: > Gosh, an Ada relevance of sorts in this thread (Pascal, > if your news reader is still forcing you to actually read all > these messages, then you can find the magic word :-) Well my news reader (which is VM BTW) does have a kill file feature, but I won't use it for this thread... It is really entertaining to watch the thread evolution ;) Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 6:04 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 17:39 ` Pascal Obry @ 2001-01-29 18:53 ` David Starner 2001-01-30 6:15 ` Robert Dewar 2001-02-02 22:11 ` Mark Lundquist 1 sibling, 2 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: David Starner @ 2001-01-29 18:53 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 06:04:48 GMT, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: >When it comes to programming languages, it is amazing how >many people dismiss programming languages they know absolutely >nothing about. How many people do you know who in some sense >are experts in the PL field who don't know COBOL or VB, but >are quite sure that both these languages are junk. And sometimes ... I read an article on the net explaining that assembly was so great, and it has all the advantages of a high level language except for portability, and *that you should listen to the people who program half their code in assembly, because the others don't know the language*. If you require someone to know a language inside and out before having an opinion on it, only the people who will have an opinion on it are those who love it enough to spend all that time learning it. -- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 18:53 ` David Starner @ 2001-01-30 6:15 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-30 15:54 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-30 19:32 ` Martin Dowie 2001-02-02 22:11 ` Mark Lundquist 1 sibling, 2 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-30 6:15 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <954e7d$8q61@news.cis.okstate.edu>, dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org wrote: >. If you require someone to know a language inside > and out before having an opinion on it, only the people who will have > an opinion on it are those who love it enough to spend all that time > learning it. You do not have to "love" a language to spend time learning it. Indeed the idea of expending such a deep emotion as love on some technical artifical language is a bit sad .... If have NOT learned a language, then you don't know it. If you don't know it, then you really can't comment on it in an informed manner, and what happens is that people tend to borrow their pseudo-opinions from what they have heard. So for example, lots of people will dismiss COBOL as too verbose, which overall is plain technical nonsense (when I gave a talk at Berkeley on COBOL, I spent time addressing this silly issue just because so many people are under this illusion -- we took several standard algorithms, and programmed them in several languages, and COBOL came out as short or shorter than the competition, both in characters and token count :-) Of course this is a totally uninteresting issue anyway, and has nothing to do with the things that make COBOL an interesting language :-) With regard to assembly language, you cannot have an opinion on AL from a language point of view unless you have reasonable working knowledge of an AL. It is really a rule of all honest intellectual approaches that you cannot offer opinions on things you don't know about. If you have not read Dickens, then you do NOT go selling other's opinions of Dickens as though they were your own! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-30 6:15 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-30 15:54 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-30 19:32 ` Martin Dowie 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-30 15:54 UTC (permalink / raw) On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote: > In article <954e7d$8q61@news.cis.okstate.edu>, > dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org wrote: > >. If you require someone to know a language inside > > and out before having an opinion on it, only the people who > will have > > an opinion on it are those who love it enough to spend all > that time > > learning it. > > > You do not have to "love" a language to spend time learning > it. Indeed the idea of expending such a deep emotion as love > on some technical artifical language is a bit sad .... From MW Pocket love: 4 to take pleasure in <~s to play bridge> It's usually considered bad form to deliberately misinterpret someone's words like that. In general, I try very hard to find a reasonable (to me :) interpretation of a statement that looks odd. When I say "I love movies" or "I love chess" it's not the same sense as "I love my wife" or "I love my son", but, like Ada, English permits overloading. The rest is fine, but skirts David Starner's point. How well do you have to know a language before you can be said to comment on it in an informed manner? I don't know C++ like the back of my hand. I don't have a PhD in Shakespeare studies. I haven't implemented an Ada compiler, nor have I held political office. Should I just shut up about all of these topics? -- Brian > If have NOT learned a language, then you don't know it. If > you don't know it, then you really can't comment on it > in an informed manner, and what happens is that people tend > to borrow their pseudo-opinions from what they have heard. > > So for example, lots of people will dismiss COBOL as too > verbose, which overall is plain technical nonsense (when I > gave a talk at Berkeley on COBOL, I spent time addressing > this silly issue just because so many people are under > this illusion -- we took several standard algorithms, and > programmed them in several languages, and COBOL came out > as short or shorter than the competition, both in characters > and token count :-) Of course this is a totally uninteresting > issue anyway, and has nothing to do with the things that make > COBOL an interesting language :-) > > With regard to assembly language, you cannot have an opinion > on AL from a language point of view unless you have reasonable > working knowledge of an AL. > > It is really a rule of all honest intellectual approaches that > you cannot offer opinions on things you don't know about. If > you have not read Dickens, then you do NOT go selling other's > opinions of Dickens as though they were your own! > > > Sent via Deja.com > http://www.deja.com/ > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-30 6:15 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-30 15:54 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-30 19:32 ` Martin Dowie 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Martin Dowie @ 2001-01-30 19:32 UTC (permalink / raw) "Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses." --- Thomas Robert Dewar Any relation... :-) Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:955m5h$brm$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > In article <954e7d$8q61@news.cis.okstate.edu>, > dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org wrote: > >. If you require someone to know a language inside > > and out before having an opinion on it, only the people who > will have > > an opinion on it are those who love it enough to spend all > that time > > learning it. > > > You do not have to "love" a language to spend time learning > it. Indeed the idea of expending such a deep emotion as love > on some technical artifical language is a bit sad .... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 18:53 ` David Starner 2001-01-30 6:15 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-02-02 22:11 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-02-03 0:17 ` David Starner 1 sibling, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-02 22:11 UTC (permalink / raw) David Starner <dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu> wrote in message news:954e7d$8q61@news.cis.okstate.edu... > > And sometimes ... I read an article on the net explaining that assembly > was so great, and it has all the advantages of a high level language > except for portability, and *that you should listen to the people > who program half their code in assembly, because the others don't > know the language*. Well there the nature of the argument is a bit different. Assembly vs. HLLs is all about level of abstraction. In the case of language X vs. language Y, the argument is often partially about level abstraction (especially where X or Y is "Ada" :-), but to a lesser degree, and also in combination with other factors rather than just level of abstraction alone. But regarding assembly vs. HLL's, I don't think deep knowledge of some particular machine-level programming model is required in order to make intellgent statements about the issues (although I'm sure a person who has done some significant assembly programming as well as HLL programming is in a position to have some unique insights into the tradeoffs). > If you require someone to know a language inside > and out before having an opinion on it, only the people who will have > an opinion on it are those who love it enough to spend all that time > learning it. > That seems a bit reactionary :-) Robert's point seemed pretty innocent -- it was just that one ought to have some authentic knowledge if they're going to have opinions about something. It seems hard to argue against that! :-) Otherwise, as Mark Twain said, they are not real opinions at all, only "corn pone opinions" -- either hearsay or speculation, or both. Just like when people say "Ada must suck, because it was designed by a committee", because they heard someone else say this, and that person got it from the "New Hacker's Dictionary", etc. Dewar's point seems to be not about the completeness of one's knowledge, but about the firsthand nature of it. I don't know Ada inside and out, and I've been corrected more than a few times by Dewar and others, but I've never been made to feel as if I'm being told that I'm unqualified to participate in the discussions we have in this forum. Dewar *does* happen to know the language inside and out, so he's often in a position to do the correcting, but you can't really hold that against him :-) Best Regards, Mark Lundquist P.S. A while back I started to notice that dialogs and arguments tend to get driven to extremes of position. And once I started to notice this, I began to notice it everywhere I looked :-). I don't know if this is a Western cultural thing, or a modern thing, or what. But while everybody readily admits that extremes are to be avoided, we all seem unwilling to let someone else hold a moderate position! :-) For instance, if you make a statement like "Laizzes-faire economics does produces undesirable results", someone will say "Oh, so you're some kind of socialist, is that it?" If you argue against an extreme position, people assume you are advocating the opposite extreme, and it takes a lot of convincing to get them to believe that you aren't doing that. Funny! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-02-02 22:11 ` Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-03 0:17 ` David Starner 0 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: David Starner @ 2001-02-03 0:17 UTC (permalink / raw) On Fri, 2 Feb 2001 14:11:23 -0800, Mark Lundquist <mark@rational.com> wrote: >That seems a bit reactionary :-) Robert's point seemed pretty innocent -- >it was just that one ought to have some authentic knowledge if they're going >to have opinions about something. But this was in a discussion of Shakespeare, where someone said that he didn't like Shakespeare, for such and such a reason, and Robert Dewar said he hadn't studied it enough. The original author had some authentic knowledge - the question was how much was needed. -- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-28 3:51 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-28 13:00 ` Pat Rogers 2001-01-29 1:40 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 16:16 ` Stephen Leake 2001-01-30 1:21 ` Brian Rogoff 2 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2001-01-29 16:16 UTC (permalink / raw) Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes: > On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote: > > In article > > <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101262056580.20133-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, > > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > > like being forced to read Shakespeare. > > > > It's a shame to see an attitude like this. Anyone not able to > > appreciate Shakespeare is missing something pretty important > > in life > > I don't think so. You're certainly entitled to choose to appreciate > whatever you want, but it's a bit silly to make a sweeping statement > like that. There are lots of things I don't appreciate, like opera, > and country & western music. No doubt a C&W fan would make the same sort > of remark about my disdain for his preferred art form as you Shakespeare > freaks would make. There are more preferences in heaven and earth, Robert, > than are dreamt of in your philosophy. :-) For example, read some Orson Scott Card, or Ursula K. LeGuin. There's real emotion, real philosophy, and relevance for current times. -- -- Stephe (sorry, no Latin here :) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 16:16 ` Stephen Leake @ 2001-01-30 1:21 ` Brian Rogoff 0 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-30 1:21 UTC (permalink / raw) On 29 Jan 2001, Stephen Leake wrote: > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes: > > > On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote: > > > In article > > > <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101262056580.20133-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, > > > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > > > like being forced to read Shakespeare. > > > > > > It's a shame to see an attitude like this. Anyone not able to > > > appreciate Shakespeare is missing something pretty important > > > in life > > > > I don't think so. You're certainly entitled to choose to appreciate > > whatever you want, but it's a bit silly to make a sweeping statement > > like that. There are lots of things I don't appreciate, like opera, > > and country & western music. No doubt a C&W fan would make the same sort > > of remark about my disdain for his preferred art form as you Shakespeare > > freaks would make. There are more preferences in heaven and earth, Robert, > > than are dreamt of in your philosophy. :-) > > For example, read some Orson Scott Card, or Ursula K. LeGuin. There's > real emotion, real philosophy, and relevance for current times. Well, the fact is that if you decide to study a topic then you have also decided that other topics may not be studied, since your time is limited. The root of decide is the same as homicide, patricide, etc. So the decision to devote a large amount of effort to Shakespeare kills the study of more modern and interesting topics :-). Interestingly, there was *no* science fiction in any of my required literature studies. -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-28 0:08 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Robert Dewar 2001-01-28 3:51 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-29 23:05 ` kopilovitch 2001-02-02 21:52 ` Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes " Mark Lundquist 2001-02-08 5:15 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Buz Cory 2 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: kopilovitch @ 2001-01-29 23:05 UTC (permalink / raw) I think that Robert Dewar's propaganda of Shakespeare is sufficiently relevant to the Ada language. Just because it reflects some mental attitude(s) of at least one of the most active designers and supporters of Ada language. I invite the Usenet-police-callers to observe that Ada Reference Manual and Rationale aren't, after all, self-organized and self-developing creatures. I see some significance in the facts that one of the most active real supporters of Ada - Robert Dewar - promotes Shakespeare, and at the same time, author of the best books about Delphi - Ray Lischner - maintains a website dedicated to Shakespeare. By the way, Robert, maybe you will help me in one problem of that sort: I decided to reread Ecclesiastes, and this time to read it in English (a long ago I read it in Russian). But when I went to www.gospelcom.net/bible, I saw there 7 (!) different translations of Ecclesiastes: New International Version King James Version New American Standard Bible Revised Standard Version Darby Translation Young's Literal Translation New King James Version Which version do you recommend? Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 23:05 ` kopilovitch @ 2001-02-02 21:52 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-02-03 1:28 ` Jeffrey Carter 0 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-02 21:52 UTC (permalink / raw) <kopilovitch@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:954svq$mt1$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > > By the way, Robert, maybe you will help me in one problem of that > sort: > I decided to reread Ecclesiastes, and this time to read it in English > (a long > ago I read it in Russian). But when I went to www.gospelcom.net/bible, > I saw > there 7 (!) different translations of Ecclesiastes: > > New International Version > King James Version > New American Standard Bible > Revised Standard Version > Darby Translation > Young's Literal Translation > New King James Version > > Which version do you recommend? I can't speak for Robert, and I hope neither of you mind if I interject... I just reread Ecclesiastes myself, toward the end of last year (and you know what, there's still nothing new under the sun... :-) I'd recommend you read all the translations! Ecclesiastes is not that long of a book. If I had to choose just one, I would probably not choose the KVJ (the original 1611 translation) or the Darby, but I'd be happy with probably any of the others (except that I've never seen the Young's, so I can't comment on it). However, if I had to pick *two*, the KJV would probably be my first choice for the second pick! Certainly the style of language in the KJV is far from current, and that makes it awkward for some people, and others (who are in a position to know) consider that it contains some translational inaccuracies. It of course has the "thee/thou/ye" forms, which even in 1611 were obsolete, having dropped from usage some 200-300 years before, but were employed by the translators to preserve the singular/plural distinction. And it has the obsolete conjugational suffixes ("est/eth"). But if you can get past all that, theKJV has in places a singular literary grace. The NKJV is a translation from the original languages that uses the 1611 KJV as a template (not a source). Darby would probably interesting for a student of systematic theology and comparative doctrine. John Nelson Darby was the founder of the Plymouth Brethren and the father of premillenial dispensationalism. I've never read his translation of the Bible, but I have studied his commentaries, and I find his hermeneutics to be somewhat stretched at times. I wouldn't use his as a "main" translation. Now then... the NASB is great. It takes the "direct" side of the direct vs. intent tradeoff in translation, which results in some wording and sentence structures which are not very idiomatic English. The NIV takes the other side of the tradeoff, and as such it reads well for a modern reader. It has a feel that is consistent, but a little "safe". Also, if you study theology you start to discern some doctrinal "coloration" in the translation -- nowhere near being fraudulent or anything, just enough to make you want to have some other translations on hand. I say this speaking for myself as one who is solidly evangelical in doctrine (and the NIV definitely comes out of the evangelical tradition). I also think that some of the translation decisions were dubious. I don't know the original languages, so my statement is based on the study of commentaries that discuss meanings in the original languages. Nevertheless,my "main" Bible is an NIV (mostly because my wife gave me one years ago, and now it has all my underlinings and notes scrawled in the margins, etc.). I also like the RSV, although I don't know very much about it. Another favorite is the Berklee translation if you can lay your hands on one. I grew up with that (for some reason) and just recently reread the gospel of John in the Berklee -- just great. And you ought to read from the Living Bible as well. It's a paraphrase, not a translation. But it can be quite refreshing to read it along with a translated text. Bottom line, there can be no single "best" translation and it is a good thing that there are so many. Have fun! Mark Lundquist P.S. The whole issue of translation in general is really fascinating. I remember when I first got hooked on the works of Stanislaw Lem. Then I read some more of his stuff that seemed flat and pedestrian. It just kind of went "thud" -- all the sparkle and depth were missing. Then I realized that the pieces that worked were translated by Michael Kandel, and none of the ones that went "thud" were translated by him. Considering all that there is in Lem -- the thought structures, multiple layers of meaning, and self-referential pardoxes ("A Perfect Vacuum", "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" etc.) and the whimsical word-play of his short stories, it's just amazing that the stuff can be translated at all. (Maybe Lem himself is a dullard, and Kandell is some kind of James Joyce of translation! :-). If there are any other SL fans out there... does anyone know if there's an immediate translation of "Solaris" from Polish to English? For a long time the only English version available was itself translated from a French version (I think something like that might have been the problem with some of the things that went "thud"...) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes and other irrelevant topics 2001-02-02 21:52 ` Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes " Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-03 1:28 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-02-05 16:32 ` Mark Lundquist 0 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-02-03 1:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Mark Lundquist wrote: > [The King James Bible] of course has the > "thee/thou/ye" forms, which even in 1611 were obsolete, having dropped from > usage some 200-300 years before ... An interesting assertion, considering that Shakespeare used them pervasively when writing less than 50 years before, and 225 years before was when Chaucer was writing late Middle English, and such things were definitely in common use then. -- Jeff Carter "You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!" Monty Python & the Holy Grail ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes and other irrelevant topics 2001-02-03 1:28 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-02-05 16:32 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-02-05 19:36 ` Al Christians 0 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-05 16:32 UTC (permalink / raw) Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message news:3A7B5EC8.55E203D2@acm.org... > Mark Lundquist wrote: > > [The King James Bible] of course has the > > "thee/thou/ye" forms, which even in 1611 were obsolete, having dropped from > > usage some 200-300 years before ... > > An interesting assertion, considering that Shakespeare used them > pervasively when writing less than 50 years before, and 225 years before > was when Chaucer was writing late Middle English, and such things were > definitely in common use then. Hey wise guy, what's the big idea dragging Shakespeare into this? Can't we stay on-topic for one minute? The nerve of some people.... :-) -- mark ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes and other irrelevant topics 2001-02-05 16:32 ` Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-05 19:36 ` Al Christians 2001-02-07 18:59 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-02-08 19:19 ` Florian Weimer 0 siblings, 2 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-02-05 19:36 UTC (permalink / raw) Mark Lundquist wrote: > > Hey wise guy, what's the big idea dragging Shakespeare into this? > Can't we stay on-topic for one minute? > OK. How would Hamlet have worked out better if Shakespeare had used Ada? Would it have come in in 45 minutes with 40% fewer actors and 60% less tragedy? Obviously, his development process was out of control. He released Henry 6.0, followed that up with Henry 4.0, and then Henry 5.0 and then Henry 8.0. Henry 7.0 never even got released. If he had used Ada, would Richard 2.0 have been released as an upgrade to Richard 3.0? Several of his sonnets were accidentally released that didn't even have fourteen lines. He forgot to put "All that glisters is not gold" under change control. But we still use his quality assurance procedure: "All's Well that Ends Well". Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes and other irrelevant topics 2001-02-05 19:36 ` Al Christians @ 2001-02-07 18:59 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-02-08 19:19 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-07 18:59 UTC (permalink / raw) Al Christians <achrist@easystreet.com> wrote in message news:3A7F00D7.494EF114@easystreet.com... > > OK. How would Hamlet have worked out better if Shakespeare had used > Ada? Would it have come in in 45 minutes with 40% fewer actors and > 60% less tragedy? Would Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern still be dead?... :-) -- mark ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes and other irrelevant topics 2001-02-05 19:36 ` Al Christians 2001-02-07 18:59 ` Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-08 19:19 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-02-08 19:19 UTC (permalink / raw) Al Christians <achrist@easystreet.com> writes: > OK. How would Hamlet have worked out better if Shakespeare had used > Ada? Would it have come in in 45 minutes with 40% fewer actors and > 60% less tragedy? 'Much Ada About Nothing' would probably tell the story of a bastard programmer who tries to jeopardize an implementation of the task interaction described in ARM 9.5.2. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-28 0:08 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Robert Dewar 2001-01-28 3:51 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-29 23:05 ` kopilovitch @ 2001-02-08 5:15 ` Buz Cory 2001-02-08 7:38 ` Al Christians 2 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Buz Cory @ 2001-02-08 5:15 UTC (permalink / raw) On 1/27/01, 7:08:58 PM, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote regarding Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics: > In article > <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101262056580.20133-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > like being forced to read Shakespeare. > It's a shame to see an attitude like this. Anyone not able to > appreciate Shakespeare is missing something pretty important > in life Certainly, but forcing children to read Shakespeare without ever seeing a performance nor adequate instruction in reading and understanding stage directions can be pure torture. Children should be exposed to performances of such things as "Midsummer Night's Dream". Things like "Taming of the Shrew" and "Romeo and Juliet", much less "Hamlet" should not be read or watched until the late teens or later. We were forced to read Shakespeare when I was about 12! And with no prior experience reading plays. > (the technical junk we all spend so much time with > is not an adequate substitute :-) Agreed, but forcing children to read Shakespeare early makes it less likely, not more, that that person will ever learn to read him with understanding and enjoyment. == Buz :) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-02-08 5:15 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Buz Cory @ 2001-02-08 7:38 ` Al Christians [not found] ` <95uav7$nfb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 2001-02-08 19:47 ` Mark Lundquist 0 siblings, 2 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-02-08 7:38 UTC (permalink / raw) Buz Cory wrote: > > Agreed, but forcing children to read Shakespeare early makes it less > likely, not more, that that person will ever learn to read him with > understanding and enjoyment. > Let us return to an on-topic topic, if only as an aside: If my intent is to write code that will be not only read and performed, but also revered, 400 years hence, what language and style should I take a shot at? How is it that single authors produce the most praised literary works, but egoless, pair, and team-oriented approaches are favored for software works? Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <95uav7$nfb$1@nnrp1.deja.com>]
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics [not found] ` <95uav7$nfb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> @ 2001-02-08 16:00 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-02-08 16:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <95uav7$nfb$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> wrote: > In article <3A824CF4.940EA80E@PublicPropertySoftware.com>, > Al Christians <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote: > > > How is it that single authors produce the most praised > > literary works, but egoless, pair, and team-oriented > > approaches are favored for software > > works? > > Perhaps because software projects have more in common with > engineering tasks than fine art. This does not mean that there > is no artistic element. When a team designs and builds a The analogy Fredrick Brooks used in "The Mythical Man-Month" was building a Cathedral. His archetype is Reims Cathedral, whose builders supposedly stuck to the original plan and style, despite changes in architectural fashion, through the multiple generations it took to build. -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics 2001-02-08 7:38 ` Al Christians [not found] ` <95uav7$nfb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> @ 2001-02-08 19:47 ` Mark Lundquist 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-08 19:47 UTC (permalink / raw) Al Christians <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message news:3A824CF4.940EA80E@PublicPropertySoftware.com... > Buz Cory wrote: > > > > Agreed, but forcing children to read Shakespeare early makes it less > > likely, not more, that that person will ever learn to read him with > > understanding and enjoyment. > > > > Let us return to an on-topic topic, if only as an aside: Then I suppose we should change the subject line :-)... but I couldn't figure out what to change it to :-) > > If my intent is to write code that will be not only read and performed, > but also revered, 400 years hence, what language and style should I > take a shot at? Language: empirically, COBOL seems to have the most staying power. Style: as obscure as possible. If nobody knows what your code does or how it works, they will be afraid to change it and it will acheive immortality. :-) :-) :-) > > How is it that single authors produce the most praised literary works, > but egoless, pair, and team-oriented approaches are favored for software > works? 1) Time-efficiency. Important in software development, not important in literature. 2) Art is (arguably) a personal expression. Programming is instrumental (not an end in itself), and ideally the only thing "expressed" about its author(s) is how good he/she/they are at solving the problem. Often two heads are better than one, as the saying goes (but n+k heads are not necessarily better than n -- cf. Brooks, "Out Of The Tar Pit"). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics [not found] ` <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101250921430.10262-100000@shell5.ba.best.com> [not found] ` <94qbb4$bs1$1@nnrp1.deja.com> @ 2001-01-26 21:06 ` Lao Xiao Hai 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-26 21:06 UTC (permalink / raw) Brian Rogoff wrote: > On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote: > > > Decimate refers to the practice in the Roman army of punishing > > a failing unit of an army by randomly executing one out of ten > > members. > > Now that's interesting. I wonder if the US military will reintroduce the > practice to keep software quality high now that Ada is being replaced by > C++ ;-) Well, since we are getting silly, does anyone know how Roman soldiers counted off? I, II, III, IV, V, VI, ... I'm not going to sign this. :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <mailman.980514018.8909.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>]
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics [not found] <mailman.980514018.8909.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org> @ 2001-01-26 15:37 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-26 15:58 ` Ted Dennison ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-26 15:37 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <mailman.980514018.8909.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org wrote: > Actually mine was: it was nil! For me that is just what it > should have been. (I suppose I took French, English and > Italian instead.) Ah, so you were just guessing about the meaning of cf :-) And here I was thinking you were quoting Ovid (though I must say I cannot remember the use of this Latin word in Ovid, it does not easily fit into Iambic pentameter -- well actually that's not fair, it could fit, but I still don't remember him using the term, and I had to learn thousands of lines of Ovid -- it was the usual punishment at my school -- so while we were in exile being punished, we got to learn all about his laments of frigid winters in the North :-) It's a good thing I changed the subject line of this thread! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-26 15:37 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-26 15:58 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-26 21:11 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-26 23:43 ` Nick Williams 2 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-26 15:58 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <94s5iq$rdk$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > the term, and I had to learn thousands of lines of Ovid -- it > was the usual punishment at my school -- so while we were in > exile being punished, we got to learn all about his laments > of frigid winters in the North :-) A nasty punishment indeed. Now if you spent all that time reading Catullus, that would be interesting. :-) -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-26 15:37 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-26 15:58 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-26 21:11 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-26 23:43 ` Nick Williams 2 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-26 21:11 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > > ... not fair, it could fit, but I still don't remember him using > the term, and I had to learn thousands of lines of Ovid -- it > was the usual punishment at my school -- so while we were in > exile being punished, we got to learn all about his laments > of frigid winters in the North :-) I preferred his more entertaining work, Ars Amatoris. Of course we did not get to read that in high school Latin class. That was not introduced until college. Hmmmmm. Just thinking about that makes me want to run out and buy a Latin dictionary and locate a copy of Ovid's salacious work. :-) Richard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-26 15:37 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-26 15:58 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-26 21:11 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-26 23:43 ` Nick Williams 2001-01-27 14:22 ` Marin David Condic 2 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Nick Williams @ 2001-01-26 23:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > Ah, so you were just guessing about the meaning of cf :-) And > here I was thinking you were quoting Ovid (though I must say > I cannot remember the use of this Latin word in Ovid, it does > not easily fit into Iambic pentameter -- well actually that's > not fair, it could fit, but I still don't remember him using > the term, and I had to learn thousands of lines of Ovid -- it > was the usual punishment at my school -- so while we were in > exile being punished, we got to learn all about his laments > of frigid winters in the North :-) Iambic pentameter, in Ovid? Say it isn't so! Surely most of Ovid is elegiac couplets, wherein both the hexameters and the pentameters are _dactylic_? And the bits of verse that aren't elegiac couplets are dactylic hexameter pure and simple (like the Metamorphoses). Assuming that the word in question is 'conferre'; it appears in both Metamorphoses and Amores in its infinitive form, although exceedingly infrequently; the 'contul-' perfect root is rather more common, it seems. Obviously, it is significantly easier to scan conferre in hexameter, because the two long syllables can be the second syllable of a spondee, and the start of the next foot: cf. 'et conferre gradum, et veniendi discere causas' (Aeneid, Book IV, Aeneas' fallen countrymen greet him in the underworld). Cheers, Nick Williams PxCS. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-26 23:43 ` Nick Williams @ 2001-01-27 14:22 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-27 15:07 ` Georg Bauhaus ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-27 14:22 UTC (permalink / raw) This whole thread is so far off topic, its rather amazing. You can't even find the word "computer" in it anywhere. What surprises me is how much interest there seems to be in Latin within this group. A little fun and games is understandable, but maybe this has drifted on too long for C.L.A.? Where are the Usenet Police when you need them? :-) MDC Nick Williams wrote: > Robert Dewar wrote: > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-27 14:22 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-27 15:07 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-27 16:28 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-28 0:05 ` Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2001-01-27 15:07 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic (mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org) wrote: : What surprises me is how much : interest there seems to be in Latin within this group. Don't you learn Latin with reference manual style books? :-) Georg Bauhaus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-27 14:22 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-27 15:07 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2001-01-27 16:28 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-28 0:05 ` Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-27 16:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> writes: > What surprises me is how much interest there seems to be in Latin > within this group. Latin is just another obscure language. ;-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-27 14:22 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-27 15:07 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-27 16:28 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-28 0:05 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-28 8:48 ` Pascal Obry 2 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-28 0:05 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A72D99C.D7B062B3@acm.org>, Marin David Condic <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> wrote: > This whole thread is so far off topic, its rather amazing. You can't even > find the word "computer" in it anywhere. What surprises me is how much > interest there seems to be in Latin within this group. > > A little fun and games is understandable, but maybe this has drifted on too > long for C.L.A.? Where are the Usenet Police when you need them? :-) Marin, if you feel the need for the Usenet Police in a case like this, you are using an incompetent news reader. I changed the subject to the above, to make it perfectly easy for anyone to suppress the thread if they are not interested. If you are not able to do this, then that's surprising, any decent news reader MUST have this capability in my view. So, assuming your reader DOES have this capability, you have deliberately decided to read this thread, knowing perfectly well from the title that it cannot be relevant. You cannot possibly complain at your own decision to do this. The time that internet Police are needed is when people go off-topic WITHOUT changing the subject line. In fact you will notice that the CLA folk are very disciplined, as soon as I changed the subject line when the thread started to go irrelevant, everyone followed, and the original thread was left unaffected. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-28 0:05 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-28 8:48 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-29 1:49 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2001-01-28 8:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert, You are not fair ! You most certainly like to remind peoples to stay on topic and here the discussion is not a CLA one, right ? Please move this to a private discussion or to another news group. It is not a good idea to debate about the News reader missing features... or we will have a very big amount of message on CLA, or is that to bump statistics :) Pascal. PS: Pascal, the Usenet Police for this time :) -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-28 8:48 ` Pascal Obry @ 2001-01-29 1:49 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 7:01 ` dejmej 0 siblings, 1 reply; 49+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 1:49 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <u8znw3vuy.fsf@wanadoo.fr>, Pascal Obry <p.obry@wanadoo.fr> wrote: > > Robert, > > You are not fair ! You most certainly like to remind peoples to stay on topic > and here the discussion is not a CLA one, right ? > > Please move this to a private discussion or to another news group. It is not a > good idea to debate about the News reader missing features... or we will have > a very big amount of message on CLA, or is that to bump statistics :) There seem to be quite a few people who like this thread, including many CLA regulars. So I think it is more reasonable that those who DON'T want to read it simply kill the thread, than demand it stop. As I said before, the only thing that worries me is when a legitimate discussion goes off topic, but I really can't see how anyone can object to a thread with the above subject. (surely you are not telling me you use a reader which cannot kill threads :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 1:49 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-29 7:01 ` dejmej 2001-01-29 13:22 ` Ken Garlington 2001-02-02 21:46 ` Mark Lundquist 0 siblings, 2 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: dejmej @ 2001-01-29 7:01 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <952i6j$nv5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <u8znw3vuy.fsf@wanadoo.fr>, > Pascal Obry <p.obry@wanadoo.fr> wrote: > > > > Robert, > > > > You are not fair ! You most certainly like to remind peoples > to stay on topic > > and here the discussion is not a CLA one, right ? > > > > Please move this to a private discussion or to another news > group. It is not a > > good idea to debate about the News reader missing features... > or we will have > > a very big amount of message on CLA, or is that to bump > statistics :) > > There seem to be quite a few people who like this thread, > including many CLA regulars. So I think it is more reasonable > that those who DON'T want to read it simply kill the thread, > than demand it stop. > > As I said before, the only thing that worries me is when a > legitimate discussion goes off topic, but I really can't see > how anyone can object to a thread with the above subject. > > (surely you are not telling me you use a reader which cannot > kill threads :-) > > Sent via Deja.com > http://www.deja.com/ > Which may be decoded to be an allowance to discuss anything on comp.lang.ada as long as the thread is popular with an extensive participation? While being under the heading of "Latin and other irrelevant topics": People studying computer languages are grown up people responsible for their own professional career. Why bother if their question to comp.lang.ada is a student homework. Just answer the question and stop worrying about whether that is the right studying technique for the person. Anders Wirzenius Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 7:01 ` dejmej @ 2001-01-29 13:22 ` Ken Garlington 2001-02-02 21:46 ` Mark Lundquist 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-29 13:22 UTC (permalink / raw) <dejmej@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:9534fn$5nt$1@nnrp1.deja.com... : : Which may be decoded to be an allowance to : discuss anything on comp.lang.ada as long as the : thread is popular with an extensive participation? Assuming comp.lang.ada represents a community, and "extensive participation" implies majority consent that the thread is acceptable to them, sounds reasonable to me... : While being under the heading of "Latin and other : irrelevant topics": : People studying computer languages are grown up : people responsible for their own professional : career. Why bother if their question to : comp.lang.ada is a student homework. Just answer : the question and stop worrying about whether that : is the right studying technique for the person. In other words, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Personally, I prefer the alternate view -- that professional engineers (software or otherwise) have some responsibility to encourage good behaviors in those working to become (or remain) professionals. http://computer.org/tab/code11.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
* Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics 2001-01-29 7:01 ` dejmej 2001-01-29 13:22 ` Ken Garlington @ 2001-02-02 21:46 ` Mark Lundquist 1 sibling, 0 replies; 49+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-02-02 21:46 UTC (permalink / raw) <dejmej@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:9534fn$5nt$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > In article <952i6j$nv5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > > > There seem to be quite a few people who like > this thread, > > including many CLA regulars. So I think it is > more reasonable > > that those who DON'T want to read it simply > kill the thread, > > than demand it stop. > > > > As I said before, the only thing that worries > me is when a > > legitimate discussion goes off topic, but I > really can't see > > how anyone can object to a thread with the > above subject. > > > > Which may be decoded to be an allowance to > discuss anything on comp.lang.ada as long as the > thread is popular with an extensive participation? That's the idea! :-) As long as the normal etiquette of indicating the off-topicness in the Subject line, I don't see a thing wrong with it. One convention found in some newsgroups is to prefix subjects with "OT" for "off-topic". Will tolerating these threads cause our signal-to-noise ratio to plummet? No, because the discussion will dry up and blow away on its own if it doesn't get critical mass. Most of these originated in some relevant thread, and only after we've gone down a rabbit-trail for a few posts and are still going strong is the subject line changed to indicate that it's taken on a life of its own as an off-topic thread. So if I were to start a thread on "The secret life of lint", or "Broccoli: large vegetable, or tiny tree?" it's unlikely that it would be sustained. I've really enjoyed following this "Latin..." thread. It's also interesting to see how these threads often have a way of working themselves back to being on-topic. :-) Mark ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 49+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-02-08 19:47 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 49+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- [not found] <mailman.980423781.16161.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org> [not found] ` <94p9fl$a1g$1@nnrp1.deja.com> [not found] ` <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101250921430.10262-100000@shell5.ba.best.com> [not found] ` <94qbb4$bs1$1@nnrp1.deja.com> [not found] ` <94rkj1$d4r$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 2001-01-26 16:31 ` Latin and other irrelevant topics Robert Dewar 2001-01-26 20:24 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-27 5:12 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-27 13:58 ` Pat Rogers 2001-01-27 16:25 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-28 0:09 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-28 0:08 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Robert Dewar 2001-01-28 3:51 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-28 13:00 ` Pat Rogers 2001-01-29 1:40 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 4:23 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-29 5:29 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 17:32 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-29 17:34 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-29 6:04 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 17:39 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-29 18:53 ` David Starner 2001-01-30 6:15 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-30 15:54 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-30 19:32 ` Martin Dowie 2001-02-02 22:11 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-02-03 0:17 ` David Starner 2001-01-29 16:16 ` Stephen Leake 2001-01-30 1:21 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-29 23:05 ` kopilovitch 2001-02-02 21:52 ` Latin, Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes " Mark Lundquist 2001-02-03 1:28 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-02-05 16:32 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-02-05 19:36 ` Al Christians 2001-02-07 18:59 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-02-08 19:19 ` Florian Weimer 2001-02-08 5:15 ` Latin, Shakespeare, " Buz Cory 2001-02-08 7:38 ` Al Christians [not found] ` <95uav7$nfb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 2001-02-08 16:00 ` Ted Dennison 2001-02-08 19:47 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-01-26 21:06 ` Latin " Lao Xiao Hai [not found] <mailman.980514018.8909.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org> 2001-01-26 15:37 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-26 15:58 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-26 21:11 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-26 23:43 ` Nick Williams 2001-01-27 14:22 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-27 15:07 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-27 16:28 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-28 0:05 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-28 8:48 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-29 1:49 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-29 7:01 ` dejmej 2001-01-29 13:22 ` Ken Garlington 2001-02-02 21:46 ` Mark Lundquist
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