From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,fca456da8e6ec463 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-01-29 09:31:56 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!nntp-relay.ihug.net!ihug.co.nz!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!sjc-read.news.verio.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: Brian Rogoff Subject: Re: Latin, Shakespeare, and other irrelevant topics In-Reply-To: <952v4g$1p4$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Message-ID: References: <94p9fl$a1g$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <94qbb4$bs1$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <94rkj1$d4r$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <87k87i2ha7.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <94vnup$kia$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <952hmb$niq$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <952v4g$1p4$1@nnrp1.deja.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 17:32:18 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.184.139.136 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: sjc-read.news.verio.net 980789538 206.184.139.136 (Mon, 29 Jan 2001 17:32:18 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 17:32:18 GMT Organization: Verio Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:4665 Date: 2001-01-29T17:32:18+00:00 List-Id: 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 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 wrote: > > In article > > > , > > Brian Rogoff 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