Oliver said:
[...]
I am discussion situations like, for instance,
Me: How do I get some foos to do bars?
Other: Why don't you use baz instead?
-or-
Why do you want to get foos to do bars?
-or-
What is the resulting bar used for later on?
... etc.
As opposed to response questions like
What version are you using?
Are the foos of the XYZFoo subclass or the base class?
Do the bars need to be fiddlefaddle, or will just ordinary ones do?
...
You can clearly see the difference. The former don't further a goal of
determining how I can get some foos to do bars; they do however further
a goal of questioning whether I even want to get foos to do bars, or
what I want the bars for. The latter, on the other hand, are plainly
relevant to narrowing down the specifics of my requirements and of the
exact tool set I have available with which to do the job, without
questioning my requirements themselves.
This is actually pretty standard on most comp.* newsgroups I've been to.
What -- insulting people is, by implying that the decisions they have
already made are stupid without (most often) even knowing much about
their situation and requirements (which they might learn by asking the
*other* sort of questions, but never do!)...
And again, I recommend that you do answer questions of the form "Why don't
you use baz instead?", "Why do you want to get foos to do bars?", and "What
is the resulting bar used for later on?". Again, in my experience, those who
do this are more likely to get the answers they want.
Even though these questions cannot possibly further their goal
directly. In other words, it's a form of payment, rather than something
directly connected with the task being performed.
Justify this system of "payment" please.
And in particular, justify why it resembles the practise of
psychologists and other headshrinks of ignoring what you said and
asking questions that are, at best, tangentially related while refusing
to actually acknowledge what you actually did say or answer the
questions *you* asked. I can see how that *might* be useful in therapy.
I don't see how it can *possibly* be useful in solving a technological
problem of any kind.
I mean, if I asked an electrician buddy of mine whether a room of a
certain purpose should have a 220V outlet or just some 110V ones, I'd
expect to get a straight answer, not the third degree in the form of
"Why? Are you remodeling? Why not do this instead?..." -- if I wanted
to go over my plans, my reasons for them, and alternatives to same I
would bring such topics up myself wouldn't I? The suggestion that I
probably shouldn't even be doing what I'm asking how to do is
condescending and rude!
I think it never occurs to those posters that the questions being posed
of them might be some sort of trap. They just answer them, and then they get
their own questions answered, and everybody is happy.
But *why* are those questions being asked? I can think of only three
reasons to ask those sorts of questions when Joe Schmoe asks something
here:
a) The asker honestly thinks Joe's barking up the wrong tree. If Joe's
fairly sure he's not, they should just tell him how to bark up that
tree, and leave it up to him to decide if a different tree is better --
if he hasn't already compared trees when deciding on his current
choice, which he actually probably has.
b) The asker is hoping to elicit proprietary information that they can
use somehow.
c) The asker is hoping to elicit information that can be used as
supporting evidence and citations in a subsequent public essay entitled
"Why Joe Schmoe is an idiot".
Of the three, a) is patronizing, since it suggests at least a suspicion
that Joe is asking the wrong question or doing the wrong thing, and the
other two are ulterior motives clearly unworthy of being supported by
Joe.
Joe didn't come here to have all of his previous design decisions
questioned; he came here to have a single question of his own answered.
Respect that.
The (paraphrasing here) "Obviously, a Google search for 'ant' wouldn't
give me any results related to the Ant software in question" and "Well, if
it does, then Google has a lot to learn from me." posts are pretty arrogant,
IMHO.
"Paraphrasing" is putting it mildly. The logical guess as to the top
Google results for "ant" is that they'll be entomological in character.
Such a guess might be wrong in a specific instance, but for the general
class of one-word queries where the word has one very common usage and
at least one relatively obscure one, the guess that the top hits will
not relate to that obscure one is right 99.99% of the time, so it is
certainly the way for a betting man to lean.
And of course, if the top Google hit for "ant" is utterly irrelevant to
the meaning of 99.99% of real-world uses of the word, then yes, Google
has a problem. (But I never said it had a lot to learn *from me*, then,
did I?)
Therefore, when I ask a question, probably only 5 to 10 people actually know
the answer with good certainty.
In other words, it will vary with how esoteric the question is.
Chances are, these 10 people aren't reading the newsgroup during the
same period that I'm making the post. Some of them may only read the
newsgroup from work/school, and have gone home for the day, for example. In
that case, I'd probably have to wait until the next day for them to come
back, assuming they check the groups everyday.
That's statistically rather questionable. You seem to suppose that
they'd all read and post during the same time, so that you'd wait up to
a day and then get 10 answers in 10 minutes. It's far more likely that
they'd trickle in at roughly every two hours' interval in this
instance, because it's unlikely that there's any correlation between
when any one of the ten is online and when any other of the ten is
online.
You may be forgetting the international scope of the Internet. It's
always morning somewhere, evening somewhere else, etc...; if you post
your question at midnight in California, the first answer is likely to
be from some technology worker in Japan, where it's early evening and
someone might have just gotten home from work and be catching up on
internet stuff while the oven pre-heats; if you post it at noon, it
might come from a local who's on lunch break almost immediately; and so
forth.
Personally, I tend to check
the groups (but don't bother to read every single message in them) every
weekday, but I don't access them on the weekends. Others may have different
access patterns. This is how I arrived at the 2-3 day figure for "busy"
newsgroups, and "7 days or more" for the less busy ones.
That would work, if everyone who knew anything followed the same
schedule you do (and lived in the same time zone).
I think the problem here is that you consider the
statement "the immediate response is clearly and strongly disapproving" to
be objectively true, whereas I consider it to be subjectively true at best,
and false at worst.
You *are* mad, then. One of them said "What are the advantages of doing
it THAT way?!" in incredulity, or something like that, quite early in
this thread. I think the opinion implied is damned clear and
unambiguous, and it *isn't* brimming over with praise at my ingenuity
either. If you can possibly view that one as complimentary or even as
neutral, then your perceptions are way too twisted to be of any use to
me in making decisions.
Without getting too metaphysical, I'm saying there may be a difference
between reality and your perception of reality.
Even if there is, it's immaterial; since I have only the latter on
which to base my actions, the remark you made is completely useless.
It's not as if my perceptions aren't as accurate as I can make them,
after all.
See above.
Well, guilt... it's a loaded word. As I've said before, I don't think
this has anything to do with right or wrong. Did you do something "wrong"?
The word "wrong" is meaningless in this context. I think it has more to do
with cause and effect. There was an effect. Did your post participate in the
cause that effect? Yes.
No. It didn't. Not in the way you are implying. Keep in mind that the
"effect" is hostile behavior, which therefore makes it a punishment,
which therefore makes the "cause" something for which the punishers
feel there is "guilt" or "blame" to be assigned. *You* may not feel
there is any to be assigned, but this isn't about what *you* feel, it
is about what *they* feel and how to correct their misconceptions.
For misperceptions they were, seeing as I am clearly being punished
despite having acted in good faith and without ever harboring any
malicious intent, nor acted irresponsibly in a way that foreseeably
increases the risk of harm to others without their consent. Clearly,
punishing behavior under the conditions described is ipso facto unjust,
and equally clearly, responding with any kind of acceptance to it is to
become part of the same injustice -- ironically, becoming guilty of
something at that time.
You drew attention to people no saying anything about obtaining ant,
why? Is it because you wanted to know how to obtain ant?
It was because I found their behavior curious. Which fact I'm sure I'd
mentioned before.
I guess I was wrong about people not liking offtopic posts then.
I haven't made any offtopic posts. Every post that I have made here
that started a new thread involved Java programming; whereas every post
that did not responded to the content of the post being followed-up. If
you can find *one* counterexample (a thread starter by me that doesn't
mention Java, or a followup by me that is completely disconnected from
the parent) then I will be damned surprised.
But again, I might be wrong about that. I've been wrong about guessing
what other people on this group think before.
Apparently, everyone has. Certainly, people have repeatedly and
incorrectly thought that I was disparaging something merely because I
didn't use it first and ask questions later; and I admit I didn't
anticipate this firestorm of controversy would erupt over one lousy
icon(!)...
What would you call it, then?
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it might have happened before an
audience. I can easily imagine Einstein giving a lecture on relativity
before an assembly of physicists, and someone standing up and shouting (in
German) "This is all nonsense!" to which Einstein might have replied "Ok, I
respect your freedom to disagree with me. If you do not wish to hear my
theories, feel free to leave the lecture hall, but there are 200 other
scientists here who seem to be interested in hearing about it, so for their
benefit, I'd like to continue my explanation uninterrupted." And then he
goes on, doing what he was doing before the interruption, as if nothing had
happened.
That is quite different from what you were originally suggesting -- for
one thing it makes it quite clear that Einstein doesn't agree with the
claim that it's "all nonsense". For another, a closer comparison would
be with someone actually publicly calling Einstein himself an idiot,
rather than just disparaging his theories.
What planet are you from?
OK, I take that back. What *universe* are you from? Because on *any*
planet in *this* one, game theory and other basic truths of mathematics
must hold invariant, and one of the commonest rules of games is that if
you walk away from an unfinished game other than in an agreed draw, it
constitutes a forfeit. Also, in *this* universe, if two soldiers in
foxholes are popping up and spraying machine-gun fire at one another,
and then (without a negotiated cease-fire) one of them just gets up and
starts walking off, he's liable to get a bullet in his back.
I don't think there's anything to concede. You claim that you think I'm
dumb. I fully believe that you think I'm dumb. And I have no problem with
that, because I don't really care what you think of me. I personally I don't
think I'm dumb. And I don't think there's any conflict with you think I'm
dumb and me thinking I'm not dumb. Just like there'd be no conflict if I
think vanilla tastes better than chocolate, and you think chocolate tastes
better than vanilla. Different people think different things.
But surely you draw the line where someone doesn't just think you're
dumb, but starts trying to convince everyone else that as well? Then
you just have to intervene, either to stop him or to provide their
audience with an alternative theory and some evidence to support it and
refute your opponent's.
Depending on the quality of the anesthesia, maybe not.
I don't understand... Prefer not being anesthetize? Prefer being the one
to cut the arm instead of not cutting it?
You seem to misunderstand once again. If you numb yourself to pain, you
may not feel an injury, but it has still occurred. On the other hand,
if you do not numb yourself, you might react to injury by snatching
your arm back, thereby possibly saving the arm. So you can have pain
and keep the arm, or not have pain and have a much greater risk of
losing the arm. Curiously, it sounds like you'd prefer the latter.
(There is, in fact, a rare medical condition that can render a person
impervious to pain. Such people become very injury- and accident-prone,
and often have shorter lifespans because of it. Your
numb-it-and-forget-it attitude seems to indicate very short-term
thinking.)
Disclaimer: Physics isn't my strong point.
My guess: Nothing.
Yes. It should sit at the attachment point.
My guess: The block accelerates to the right, assuming no other forces
(e.g. gravity).
With the spring, it should actually end up stable at an equilibrium
position to the right of center.
Yes, again it will sit at the attachment point.
Point being, some people started trying to push other peoples' opinion
of me in one direction. Without me (or someone) maintaining an equal
and opposite force, the equilibrium will shift, and not in a direction
I want. (How much it will shift obviously depends on various things --
how prone to persuasion their audience is, how convincing the jerkwads
pushing them are ... nonetheless, these don't matter, since I can't
safely assume the result to be zero, and whatever it is, my own
opposite push will be affected in the same way.)
Here's my mindbender for you:
This guy runs up to you and points at the sky and says "I see a flying
spaghetti monster!" You look around and don't see anything that might match
that description, and so you say "I don't see anything." The guy tells you
"I'm telling you, I see it!"
So you say "Ok", and go on living your life.
What, if anything, did you agree to, upon saying "Ok"?
Apparently, that they saw it?
If you have a point, now is the time.
I'm glad that you're starting to suspect that people honestly believe
that you believe what I'm saying they believe you believe. In other words,
I'm glad you're starting to believe what I'm telling you.
That isn't very useful. How do I convince people that what I actually
say I believe, but thinking I believe a random bunch of other things is
liable to mean being mistaken? For that matter, why are they inventing
various beliefs to attribute to me to begin with?
I guess they want to talk about comp.*. Specifically, I guess the people
who post in comp.lang.java.programmer want to talk about the Java
programming language.
Yes, but the logic-deficient personages in question posting here seems
like a tribe of pygmies asking for (or worse, actually giving)
game-playing tips in rec.games.basketball.
I think I asked something like 5-7 questions here, but I only remember
the contents (and thus the answers) of 3 of them. 2 of them were pedantic
questions about the Java Language Specification, and they got answered
clearly.
There's always at least one awkward case where you need a "lawyer" to
tell you what the correct behavior is (and you can't go by the
compiler's behavior, since it might actually be a case of unspecified
behavior), eh?
So I've had 3 out of 3 good experiences here. I suspect all my questions
got answered to my satisfaction, but I can't recall for sure.
There's "answered to your satisfaction", and then there's "whether any
other baggage or cruft came along for the ride with those answers".
This group has a better track record than comp.text.tex, I'll grant you
-- there, every other person seems to be trying to sell something
(usually a book), and I've seen a wide variety of incomplete,
inapplicable, or outright wrong answers get posted in response to n00b
questions (as generally indicated when the n00b does only and exactly
what someone suggests and it blows up in their face, and then they post
back to relate the gory details). Some of those cases seem to have
resulted from the answer-poster assuming the n00b had extra knowledge
that the n00b didn't actually have (so, lesson one: don't assume a n00b
knows *anything* they didn't say or show they know); one case involved
some construct that had to be wrapped in something to work, but whoever
posted it neglected to mention that fact; the n00b naturally just
pasted the construct in without doing anything else and detonated his
project into the next century, then logged on and detonated the
newsgroup. It took weeks for that particular thread to die and it ended
up with over 500 postings...other cases have looked like they could
have been more intentional, rather than stemming simply from dubious
assumptions about someone's state of knowledge. Perhaps the better to
motivate those book sales...
Here, OTOH, the questions seem to generate a straight answer within a
few hours, but sidecars full of judgmental crap and riders full of
rambunctious rumblings have definitely come attached at times.
Hmm, interesting question. If it were me in your situation, the cost
would be zero, 'cause I don't really care about what people think of me, and
I disagree that silence implies assent.
You fail to appreciate a certain problem there -- *you* not agreeing
that silence implies assent doesn't change the minds of the people who
think it *does*, and take your silence when accused of idiocy (or
whatever) as tantamount to an admission of guilt. You may well not care
what the people calling you an idiot think, but you're making it damn
easy for them to convince everyone else that you are by letting them
try unopposed!
