"Andy Little" <andy@servocomm.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
"Mat Marcus" <mat-boost@emarcus.org> wrote in message news:603536759.1081186934@[10.51.241.93]...
I respectfully ask you to refrain from posts of this nature in the future as others on this list may also feel that they are rather offensive.
I think I would be happy at the moment,especially if this is the general view, to be officially notified, which I hope will happen in due course.
Please consider yourself "officially notified".
If that is the case I am sure that this reflects badly on me rather than Mr MacNamara.
It certainly does reflect badly on you, but there's a lot more at stake here for Boost than merely looking good. We wish to remain a community where people look forward to the rigorous experience of having their libraries reviewed, without fear that they'll be gratuitously insulted and condescended-to. On a human level, I personally have some concern for Brian's feelings, and of those who may empathize with him. Fortunately, Brian is emotionally tough, but that won't be true of everybody. There's a great saying in the Python community: "always remember that a few people on this mailing list are only fifteen years old". I don't know whether we have any 15-year-olds on the Boost list, but we might. I want to be clear that there's nothing wrong with dissent on technical issues. The problem I have is that most of your last two posts seem to have very little technical content and lots of ad-hominem subtext. Since it's not clear whether you are being intentionally hostile or whether you simply don't understand the effects of your words, I will now attempt to break down the offensive elements of your last two posts and explain their impact, at least on me:
I would suggest that C++ is not the solution for you
This strikes me as condescending in the extreme. Brian has been doing work *of community interest* in C++ since at least 2000, and was using it for who-knows-how-long before that. I'm sure he's well aware of its capabilities and limitations. Further, he probably has exposure to more languages than most of us, making him more than qualified to make such determinations on his own.
but OTOH neither is the dogma of FP.
This part is not particularly offensive, but it is narrow-minded and is phrased in a way that takes for granted an idea (that FP is more dogmatic than, e.g., OO, GP, top-down, bottom-up, aspect-oriented, etc...) for which, I'm sure you are aware, there is strong disagreement in the group. The polite thing to do in that case is to indicate somehow that you realize it's your opinion as opposed to fact.
Whether anyone has the guts to employ you I have no idea, but I wish you all the best for the future.
Condescension and insult. The implied message is "you will have a hard time finding a job because you are incapable of doing anything of practical value". Having worked a bit with Brian outside of Boost, I can say that I'd be very happy to hire him if I could. His professionalism and attention-to-detail are second to none.
From your follow-up message:
Functional programming is a great idea.
It certainly comes as a surprise to hear you say that in light of your earlier posts, to the point that it's hard to guess whether you are being honest. Not wanting to ascribe malice, I am happy to see that you're trying to soften the effects of your original posting a little.
The general response of the 'boost community', which purports to embrace FP
This expresses a general lack-of-respect for everyone here. Putting 'boost community' in quotes adds an implicit "so-called" prefix to the subtext, as if to imply that there really is no legitimate community at all. "Purports to embrace FP" offends in two ways: first, it ascribes a single philosophical preference to the whole 'community', which is really made up of individuals (as though there were a Boost FP manifesto somewhere), and then it indicts the 'community' for being dishonest about its stated philosophy.
Brian took a lot of time out with me during the FC++ review. My previous post was to say thanks, I have learnt something, and I appreciate that
I was shocked to read that your previous post was meant as a "thank you"; I hope you now understand that its effect was... something else altogether.
and despite my non-boost community attitude, which is increasing exponentially, I did gain a lot from it.
I'm not sure how to take the part about "non-boost community attitude" at all; it appears to say something like "I dislike you people more and more as time goes by".
However I get the impression, which I stated in the review that C++'s place is as an Assembly language for FP. To (try to) use FP in C++ expressions is not very productive.
Legitimate technical content, stated appropriately as opinion. Thank you.
... sorry lambda.
Somewhat condescending. The Lambda library doesn't need to please you in order to be successful. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com