R
Richard Cornford
Bart said:I think you should relativise such statements a bit.
There is certainly no harm in looking at VK's Usenet posting history.
Inaccurate information is mostly quickly corrected in
this newsgroup,
Mostly, but there are only a limited number of people capable of
correcting VK's fictions and they only have a limited amount of time for
doing so. When he is in full flow he is posting at about three times the
rate of even regular contributors (it is not that difficult to maintain
that rate when you don't bother yourself with technical verisimilitude,
and make most of it up off the top of your head) so it might take the
equivalent of all the efforts of a couple of people to correct
everything he posts. A couple of years ago nearly everything that VK
posted was subject to immediate correction, but as it became apparent
that a dozen people explaining something to VK in different ways on half
a dozen occasions would not tend to result in VK correcting his
misconceptions the nature of the responses to his posts changed. When it
is clear that effort expended in the direction of trying to get VK to
understand javascript are wasted people are less motivated to make the
effort.
You also have to bare in mind that much of what VK posts is incoherent
babble, mad up of vague allusions and miss-applied jargon. Beyond
stating that it is nonsense there is no real correction to be made, as
things need to be understandable before they can be commented upon at
all.
and anyone
makes a mistake now and then (don't we all).
Yes, everyone makes mistakes, and beginners (including those how are
already confident in their javascript authoring ability) reveal their
misconceptions and the shortcomings in their understanding. However,
most people benefit form being corrected in that they learn from it and
so do not repeat their mistakes.
That is, after all, the process by which I learnt javascript. Go back 4
years in the archives and you will find me being more corrected than
not. Corrections for which I am eternally grateful, as they provided
knowledge and direction toward considerably improving my grasp of the
subject.
However, you can correct VK until you are blue in the face and he will
still maintain that he is the only one who really understands the
subject, and remain sufficiently confident in his understanding that he
will happily post the same rubbish again that the next provocation.
But "bloody dangerous
poster" is not really the word for that
It may not be the name for someone who would benefit form
correction/explanation, but for VK "bloody dangerous poster" is pretty
much spot on.
But yes, the technical expertise of Richard's articles is
among the best I've ever seen, but they do require quite
some javascript knowledge beforehand to well understand.
If people ask I (or as often someone else) can/will explain what is not
understood (subject to the question being expressed in a well-formed
Usenet post).
I have lost count of the number of times VK has been asked to explain
statements he has made. He never does so, the best you get is a detour
into an irrelevant tangent.
I think their outstanding technical value does not always
reflect their educational value.
I don't think you have seen enough to judge (particularly if you have
not seen enough of the group to appreciate exactly what a waste of time
VK actually is).
Richard.