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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,2078dddcdcd8d83 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: Warning: Religious naming convention discussion :-) [was: assign help!!] Date: 1997/05/17 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 242100971 References: <5kjvcv$evt@news.cis.nctu.edu.tw> <5kn8ko$jcc@top.mitre.org> <1997May7.201035.2439@nosc.mil> <33727EEA.2092@sprintmail.com> <5kuf1j$17vi@uni.library.ucla.edu> <3373666A.31DFF4F5@spam.innocon.com> <3373EAB5.73A0@sprintmail.com> <337934F2.7593@world.std.com> <337DB3E3.3784@gdls.com> Organization: New York University Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-05-17T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: art said <> 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