From: Carlo Wood <carlo@alinoe.com>
On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 10:12:41PM -0400, David Abrahams wrote:
If you're going to say "never mind then" every time someone fails to quickly grasp and accept your ideas, this is not an environment in which you will be able to operate effectively.
Yes, yes... but it is not because I am irritated that I said that. I say it because the communication was already such non-effective (inefficient and fruitless) that it became below a certain threshold; I like to do things that are productive. I can be very patient with say 15 y/o C++ newbies who just started to learn C++ (ie, on IRC) just as long as they clearly make progress, but when a professional C++ developer and maintainer of an important package doesn't read (and/or understands) posts about his very own package then that instantly irritates me - sorry, can't help it :). I appologies for having displayed that though.
Communication is, by definition, a closed loop system. When you write something, you hope that the words you write adequately capture the ideas in your head and that your reader(s) will infer from those words your ideas. If that breaks down, information doesn't flow as intended. So, the recipient counters, based upon what may be a flawed understanding of what you wrote and meant. That effort may be faulty, too, but assuming you understand what the recipient wrote in response, you can clarify what you wrote. Eventually, one hopes that the same ideas are shared. You seem to have made the assumption that everyone reads with rapt attention and total understanding what you've written, when that is often not the case. This is a busy list read by busy people, so folks often skim -- to the deteriment of communication at times, to be sure -- and miss important details. I'm sure it gets frustrating having to repeat yourself or find new ways to express an idea, but that's the price one pays when being human and dealing with other humans. I hope you recognize that we're all busy, and yet that we are interested in improving ourselves and the code in Boost. No slight was intended against you; reality just intervened. Please continue to do your best to be patient and look for areas of confusion and ways to eliminate it. -- Rob Stewart stewart@sig.com Software Engineer http://www.sig.com Susquehanna International Group, LLP using std::disclaimer;