Re: Warning: Religious naming convention discussion :-) [was: assign help!!]

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

art said

<<The contention that underscores undermine any naming characterization
is ludicrous. As you pointed out above, it is just as possible to
generate ridiculous names using existing conventions. So what was
really sticking in the craw of the French?>>

Well -- I see my style in denouncing things as ludicrous is catching :-)

Actually, it was the French who lead the charge here, but they had
sympathizers in other delegations :-)

To be fair, the underscores are a little more of a problem consider
a__________b

and

a0000000000b

and now imagine that we were not using a junk monospaced font (one of the
less attractive inventions of the computer age). Then we would be completely
unable to tell how many underlines are there.

Still, over all, I have to agree with the use of the "L" word here :-)

P.S. A little anecdote about the use of the "L" word. We were at an ARG
meeting, and Jean and I always use to argue ferociously -- so much so
that some Americans were quite surprised to learn that we are, now, then
and earlier, very good friends -- Americans always have trouble distinguishing
argument from quarrelling :-)

At one point, Jean got up and said "Ah, now I see thinks more clearly, now
that Robert has said my position is ludicrous nonsense, I see that I must
be completely wrong!"

A most charming way of complaining about excessive rhetoric. We all laughed
and continued the discussion at a more constructive level :-)

By the way, the word argument is interesting. In England it tends to have
much more positive connotations. I was always brought up to consider
argument as a valuable method for intellectual exploration (for more on
this see my father's autobiography -- Michael J.S. Dewar in the ACS
autobiography series). On the other hand, in the US, people tend to
equate argument with quarrelling, and find it hard not to argue without

getting emotionally involved.

I have a good principle on argument. Never argue a position unless you are
willing to argue the other side. If you are not willing to argue he other
side then eitther

(a) you are too emotionally involved
(b) you don't understand the other side well enough

Either reason is good enough to avoid arguing the point.

Once John Goodenough and I planned a debate on some Ada related subject,
where the deal was we would toss a coin just before the debate to see
who took what side, to emphasize this principle, but it never materialized :-)

Of course another trouble is that if you do argue both sides, then people
get confused -- "but I thought you believed ...." To me, belief is about
religeon, and is better excluded from technical discussions about programming
languages -- none of the issues we talk about is important enough to invest
emotional commitment and religeous belief in them :-)

Robert