Where's The Charter?

M

Mike Wahler

[snip]
Being a non-moderated newsgroup, the topicality is effectively defined
by what the majority of the newsgroup regulars want to talk about. If
they decide to ignore any C questions and start debating the merits of
one-piece vs two-piece female swimsuits,

I vote we do that. C programs just aren't as enjoyable to
look at :)


-Mike
 
R

Rich Grise

I've been lurking for awhile, and I notice that there are some real
tight-assed
prigs around here.

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

So what if it's not "Standard C?" If it looks like C, smells like C,
quacks
like C, and compiles like C, it's probably close enough.

But all this petty sniping kind of wants to dissuade me from
participating
here, and I wonder how much of you piss-ants bitch-slapping the
newbies has
driven them away.

And they're so fond of saying, "According to the Charter ..." Well,
Where's
The Charter?

A google advanced search on "charter group:news.announce.*
insubject:comp insubject:lang insubject:c" turned up:
--------------------<begin quote>------------------------

Searched English messages for charter group:news.announce.*
insubject:comp.lang.c. Results 1 - 7 of 7. Search took 0.78
seconds.

Sorted by relevance Sort by date

Sponsored Links
Newsgroup Access $4.95 mo
Starting at $4.95 mo. get instant
access to all the newsgroups
www.nntpservers.com
Interest:


See your message here...
RFD: comp.lang.c.crossplatform
.... CHARTER: comp.lang.c.crossplatform comp.lang.c.crossplatform
provides a forum for
discussing issues the C programmer can benefit from, whether or not
they ...
news.announce.newgroups - Jun 8, 1999 by (e-mail address removed) -
View Thread (1 article)

RFD: comp.lang.c.code
.... CHARTER: comp.lang.c.code comp.lang.c.code is an un-moderated news
group for discussion
of common C programming problems and questions where participants are
....
news.announce.newgroups - Sep 5, 1995 by Bob Stout - View Thread (1
article)

RFD: comp.lang.c.moderated moderated
.... in crossposted to news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,
comp.lang.c, and comp.std.c.
NAME of GROUP: comp.lang.c.moderated DISTRIBUTION: world. CHARTER: For
the ...
news.announce.newgroups - Nov 26, 1994 by John William Chambless -
View Thread (1 article)

CFV: comp.lang.c.moderated moderated
.... of 2) moderated group comp.lang.c.moderated Newsgroups line:
comp.lang.c.moderated
The C ... CHARTER For the discussion of C programming topics that are
NOT system ...
news.announce.newgroups - Jan 22, 1995 by Ron "Asbestos" Dippold -
View Thread (1 article)

CALL FOR VOTES to create comp.lang.objective-c
.... 7.] This is a call for votes to create the news group
comp.lang.objective-c. This
group would be unmoderated and have the following proposed charter:
The news ...
news.announce.newgroups - Jul 17, 1990 by Charles Noren - View Thread
(1 article)

CALL FOR DISCUSSION to create comp.lang.objective-c
.... call for discussion for the creation of the news group
comp.lang.objective-c. This
group would be unmoderated and have the following proposed charter:
The news ...
news.announce.newgroups - Jun 22, 1990 by Charles Noren - View Thread
(1 article)

RESULT: comp.lang.c.moderated moderated passes 330:14
.... Newsgroups line: comp.lang.c.moderated The C programming language.
.... CHARTER For the
discussion of C programming topics that are NOT system-specific and
NOT ...
news.announce.newgroups - Mar 8, 1995 by Ron "Asbestos" Dippold - View
Thread (1 article)


-----------------------------<end quote>-----------------------------

As you can see, a charter for everything BUT comp.lang.c .

Which makes it a pretty stupid thing to get all petty about.

I'll check in after awhile and see if any actual programmers have
shown up.

Regards,
Rich

BTW, email to my header address just gets deleted. If you want me to
read
an email from you, hand-copy the header address and delete the
contiguous
'a', 'r', and 'd'.
 
L

Lew Pitcher

On 31 Jul 2003 12:38:23 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (Rich Grise) wrote:

[snip]
And they're so fond of saying, "According to the Charter ..." Well,
Where's
The Charter?

As many others will tell you, the comp.lang.c usenet newsgroup predates quite a
lot of the administrivia that goes into creating a new newsgroup. I doubt that
the original usenet creators of this newsgroup ever published a charter.

[snip]

--
Lew Pitcher
IT Consultant, Enterprise Technology Solutions
Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group

(Opinions expressed are my own, not my employers')
 
A

Artie Gold

Rich said:
> I've been lurking for awhile, and I notice that there are some real
> tight-assed
> prigs around here.

Perhaps some, but not in general.
>
> Bitch, bitch, bitch.
>
> So what if it's not "Standard C?" If it looks like C, smells like C,
> quacks
> like C, and compiles like C, it's probably close enough.

No. Not really.
>
> But all this petty sniping kind of wants to dissuade me from
> participating
> here, and I wonder how much of you piss-ants bitch-slapping the
> newbies has
> driven them away.

Not the smart ones.

[snip]

Here's a comment I addressed to one with a similar attitude a couple of
years ago.
> It's all about maintaining topicality -- to help ensure the usability of
> this forum well into the future. When the signal-to-noise ratio degrades
> on a newsgroup, those best equipped to answer questions -- a purely
> altruistic endeavor -- stop doing so. This newsgroup discusses the ISO
> standard C language -- certainly a large enough subject in its own right.
>
> The other reason why it's best to post to the most specific newsgroup
> possible is that that's where the expertise in a given subject lies;
> it's a brutal form of quasi-realtime peer review, which benefits those
> asking questions (as any mistake made by a respondent will most
> certainly be corrected).
>

I hope this clears things up. The attempt to enforce topicality is
nothing more than an attempt to maintain the usefulness of the newsgroup
-- both to those with questions and those with answers.

HTH,
--ag
 
J

Jason

[a lot of things]

Not everyone here has such strongly typed attitudes. Anyway it would seem
that you are a bit het up yourself and have resorted to profanity.

Here in comp.lang.c, according to my understanding we talk about ANSI
standard C. Unfortunately people do tend to questions which are C related,
but are also specific to a given implementation, or operating system. This
means that the readers here may not be able to answer the questions, and
ofcourse there are often newsgroups dedicated specifically to C, under given
operating systems and compilers.

It's hopeless to assume that this group could be used effectively for all
and any questions on C, some of which would be very irrelevant to many
people. It is then ANSI C that people hope to discuss here.

It is unfortunate, I think, that this group is not called comp.lang.ansi.c
( or similar ) but I guess in the early days there wasn't ANSI C. I would
agree that sometimes people may get over upset in some cases where, the
question isn't wholly ANSI C, or doesn't have an 'ANSI C' answer.

Example:

How does memory allocation work in C behind the scenes?

It's not really mentioned in the standard but many people could, and often
do provide likely, or at least interesting thoughts on the subject, which I
think (personally) isn't that bad or offtopic.
 
M

Malcolm

Rich Grise said:
I've been lurking for awhile, and I notice that there are some real
tight-assed prigs around here.
I wish people would realise that this is an international ng. Vulgar
language is acceptable in some cultures, but not in all, particularly when
children might be reading.
 
M

Martin Ambuhl

Rich said:
And they're so fond of saying, "According to the Charter ..." Well,
Where's
The Charter?

I don't know who this "they" is. You may get referred to the FAQ, but
that doesn't discuss topicality. There is no charter. This newsgroup
is one of the first established, long before the current newsgroup
naming rules, so with a different name, and long before charters for
newsgroups. It has survived and not turned into one of the many usenet
cesspools because we *do* stick to the topic of the newsgroup. It is
part of the culture of the newsgroup, which arose before people needed
legislation to decide how to behave.
 
E

E. Robert Tisdale

Rich said:
Well, Where's The Charter?

I don't think that there is one
and I don't think that it matters anyway.

The comp.lang.c newsgroup is *not* moderated.
You can post anything you like.
The only question is whether or not anyone will respond.
The comp.lang.c newsgroup has more than its fair share
of "off-topic cops" but they are merely expressing an opinion.
They succeed only to the extent that they can persuade
other subscribers *not* to respond to articles
that they consider to be off-topic.
If you don't agree with them, please ignore them.

I believe that most subscribers to the comp.lang.c newsgroup
subscribe because they are interested in reading about
ANSI/ISO standard C but most of the contributers are well aware
that they are not "know-it-alls" who are expert
in every implementation of the C computer programming language
and that there are more appropriate forms for discussion
of extensions to ANSI/ISO C that are frequented by experts
in those implementations. Whenever possible,
we try to re-direct implementation specific questions
to a more appropriate forum.
I subscribe to gnu.gcc.help for example and sometimes
answer questions there knowing that, if I say something wrong,
I will be immediately corrected by someone who understands
the question better than I do.
 
A

Artie Gold

Greg said:
| > But all this petty sniping kind of wants to dissuade me from
| > participating
| > here, and I wonder how much of you piss-ants bitch-slapping the
| > newbies has
| > driven them away.
|
| Not the smart ones.
| [snip]
What do you mean by smart? I think you mean thick-skinned?

Perhaps. It was more of a throwaway line related to the OPs attitude
than anything else. `Thick-skinned' may be part of it however -- but
it's also the realization that c.l.c is a great resource for learning;
some of the regulars with the most "attitude" provide the best learning
experience as well.
I remember when I first learned C. I don't think I could have been placed
into the category of "newbies: smart ones". I made more bugs than I did code
and caused a few seg faults in the process.

Ah, but you persevered! ;-) If being "smart" meant knowing all the stuff
already, "smart" folks would never need to ask questions!
This news group is an awesome resource for conversing (the best IMO), but
some people here are a little too hard on the new guys. They seem to have a
"holier than though" ego sometimes, like: "Why don't you know as much as
me?". This isn't fair.

Well, I don't really see much of that myself, but in general the best
policy is to take the info and forget the 'tude.
Of course, though, my argument does not extend to not reading the FAQ:
that's a different case. I also think that (besides in some peeps
signatures) the FAQ should be posted a bit more often.

Yup. Programming of any sort takes knowledge and talent, exhibiting
proper etiquette requires little of either. It is almost always those
who can't be bothered to make even a minimal effort toward the latter
that get "flamed to a crisp".

As far as FAQs are concerned, there's always http://www.faqs.org.

Cheers,
--ag
 
E

E. Robert Tisdale

Greg said:
Artie Gold wrote:

| > But all this petty sniping kind of wants to dissuade me from
| > participating
| > here, and I wonder how much of you piss-ants bitch-slapping the
| > newbies has
| > driven them away.
|
| Not the smart ones.
| [snip]
What do you mean by smart? I think you mean thick-skinned?
I remember when I first learned C.
I don't think that
I could have been placed into the category of "newbies: smart ones".
I made more bugs than I did code
and caused a few seg faults in the process.
This news group is an awesome resource for conversing (the best IMO)
but some people here are a little too hard on the new guys.
They seem to have a "holier than though" ego sometimes, like:
"Why don't you know as much as me?". This isn't fair.

What do you expect from computer geeks and nerds.
These aren't the most sensitive, well adjusted people.
Some of them have serious emotional problems
and are prone to vent their anger an frustration
on unwary new subscribers who aren't prepared to defend themselves.
But, if you are advocating tolerance for new subscribers,
you should also be prepared to advocate understanding
for the geeks and nerds that respond to them.
Of course, though, my argument does not extend to not reading the FAQ:
that's a different case.
I also think that (besides in some peeps signatures)
the FAQ should be posted a bit more often.

No!
The FAQ is a *HUGH* document now. It should *never* be posted.
When subscribers respond to Frequently Answered Questions (FAQs),
They should cite and quote the relevant FAQ first and only then
add commentary as required to elaborate and clarify.
Simply admonishing a new subscriber to "read the FAQ"
is seldom very helpful. People who do so are merely venting.
We would all be better off if they did *not* respond at all.
If you feel that you must respond to FAQs,
please read the FAQ yourself first and provide a URL
to the specific FAQ(s) that is(are) most relevant to the question(s).
 
M

Morris Dovey

Rich said:
> I've been lurking for awhile, and I notice that there are some
> real tight-assed prigs around here.

s/here/everywhere/ - So what's new?
> Bitch, bitch, bitch.

Hmm. Ok.
> So what if it's not "Standard C?" If it looks like C, smells
> like C, quacks like C, and compiles like C, it's probably
> close enough.

Hmm (again) - I'm willing to buy into that provided "it looks
like C, smells like C, and compiles like C" on every platform
with a C compiler that complies with the ISO/IEC definition of
the C language. If it does, then it's close enough for me, too;
but if it doesn't, then it's not really C.
> But all this petty sniping kind of wants to dissuade me from
> participating here, and I wonder how much of you piss-ants
> bitch-slapping the newbies has driven them away.

I confess that I had some difficulty parsing this comment. I
think you meant to query the probability that redirection or
critical response has caused newbies to seek elsewhere for the
information they wanted.

There's a high probability (approaching certainty) that this has
happened. In the case of redirection, this is a /desirable/
outcome. In other cases, it's most often the result of (perhaps
unintentional) behavior that deviates too far from the group's
established norm. The faint of heart and the disinterested /are/
easily discouraged - but it would seem inapropriate to hold the
newsgroup responsible for that lack of courage and/or interest.
> And they're so fond of saying, "According to the Charter ..."
> Well, Where's The Charter?

I've only been subscribed to comp.lang.c for a few years; but I
don't recall ever seeing /any/ such reference to a charter. Or
were you referring to the ISO/IEC standard document? If so, this
question (and several of your comments) can be addressed by
following the link in my sig.

BTW, several of the links at that web page were provided
specifically to help newbies interact productively with this
newsgroup. Any suggestions for additions are welcome.

Participate (or not) as you choose. If you choose to participate
in this community/forum, then you'll have ample opportunity to
both give and receive help. The group norm certainly doesn't
preclude decency, propriety, dignity, or netiquette; but strict
correctness and accuracy are required (and determined by the
ISO/IEC standard).
 
D

Dan Pop

In said:
On 31 Jul 2003 12:38:23 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (Rich Grise) wrote:

[snip]
And they're so fond of saying, "According to the Charter ..." Well,
Where's
The Charter?

As many others will tell you, the comp.lang.c usenet newsgroup predates quite a
lot of the administrivia that goes into creating a new newsgroup. I doubt that
the original usenet creators of this newsgroup ever published a charter.

Such a "charter" (actually a suggested list of topics) was published when
net.lang.c (c.l.c's ancestor) was created. But this happened *before*
the C89 standard, and not all the suggested topics found their way into
the C standard. Furthermore, in the meantime, newsgroups better suited
for discussing those topics have been created (e.g. those of the
comp.*.programmer type).

As a result, the net.lang.c "charter" has only a purely historical
relevance to today's comp.lang.c.

Being a non-moderated newsgroup, the topicality is effectively defined
by what the majority of the newsgroup regulars want to talk about. If
they decide to ignore any C questions and start debating the merits of
one-piece vs two-piece female swimsuits, then this is what comp.lang.c
is about (until they get bored and decide to start answering C questions
again).

Welcome to the Usenet!

Dan
 
J

Joona I Palaste

And they're so fond of saying, "According to the Charter ..." Well,
Where's
The Charter?

http://groups.google.com/groups?as_...TF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_ugroup=comp.lang.c&lr=&hl=en

You must be reading a different comp.lang.c than I am. The above search
yielded four messages: Yours, two messages from 1997 (about charters of
different newsgroup) and one from 2002 mentioning the comp.lang.c
charter. I don't know about you, but I think one mention of "according
to the charter" in the entire history of comp.lang.c doesn't qualify as
"being fond of saying 'according to the charter'".

--
/-- Joona Palaste ([email protected]) ---------------------------\
| Kingpriest of "The Flying Lemon Tree" G++ FR FW+ M- #108 D+ ADA N+++|
| http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste W++ B OP+ |
\----------------------------------------- Finland rules! ------------/
"The large yellow ships hung in the sky in exactly the same way that bricks
don't."
- Douglas Adams
 
R

Richard Heathfield

Rich said:
I've been lurking for awhile, and I notice that there are some real
tight-assed
prigs around here.

Those who seek shall find. I've been contributing to this newsgroup for a
while, and I notice that there are plenty of helpful people around here.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.

Help, help, help, all day long. No end to it. People here just can't stop
helping others, even for a moment.
So what if it's not "Standard C?" If it looks like C, smells like C,
quacks
like C, and compiles like C, it's probably close enough.

If it looks like C, smells like C, quacks like C, compiles like C and
behaves like C on all conforming implementations (past, present and
future), then it is indeed C.
But all this petty sniping kind of wants to dissuade me from
participating
here,

The pettiest sniping I've seen here in a while was from some guy who made
false claims such as 'And they're so fond of saying, "According to the
Charter ..."', and using rather offensive language. But I don't think we
need to name names, do you?
and I wonder how much of you piss-ants bitch-slapping the
newbies has
driven them away.

I wonder how many parents have banned their children from reading this
newsgroup because of people like you who use unnecessarily strong language
when expressing their views.
And they're so fond of saying, "According to the Charter ..."

Really? Then it will be trivial for you to provide evidence that this is the
case.
Well,
Where's
The Charter?

There isn't one, which is why we never say "According to the Charter".

BTW, email to my header address just gets deleted. If you want me to
read
an email from you, hand-copy the header address and delete the
contiguous
'a', 'r', and 'd'.

No, thanks. I'd rather email a skunk. At least they don't swear at me.
 
C

cancal

Rich said:
I've been lurking for awhile, and I notice that there are some real
tight-assed
prigs around here.

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

Amen brother! Newbies, man the barricades. It's time for a regime change.
 
J

John Bode

I've been lurking for awhile, and I notice that there are some real
tight-assed prigs around here.

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

Ah, it's nice to know some things never change.

Besides, terminal grumpiness is an occupational hazard of C
programming. You can't write C for years (especially in a
multi-platform environment) without becoming an anal-retentive
curmudgeon. Getting a C program to work reliably on one platform is
hard enough. Getting it to work reliably on three or more platforms
requires real effort. Dealing with the same stupid shit over and over
and over in the workplace primes one to be moody and bitchy every time
someone asks why he shouldn't use i=i++; if it gives him the right
answer on his machine.

I've been programming in C professionally for 13 years. I've seen and
made the same stupid mistakes more times than I care to count.
Getting the point across is paramount; if it can be done politely,
great, but that's not the primary consideration here.
So what if it's not "Standard C?" If it looks like C, smells like C,
quacks
like C, and compiles like C, it's probably close enough.

Except that "close enough" usually isn't, especially in a
multi-platform environment. There's nothing more frustrating than
getting different results on different platforms because some dipshit
figured his code was "good enough" and didn't verify that he wasn't
invoking undefined behavior or suffering from "All The World's A VAX"
Syndrome.

"Close enough" *may* work, *sometimes*, depending on the platform.
ISO Standard C *will* work, *all* the time, regardless of platform.
Since many of us here are professional C programmers, we're more
interested in the latter than the former.

*That's* why the regulars here are so bitchy. That's why questions
about things that aren't supported at the language level (networking,
graphics, sound, file system management) are referred to other
newsgroups. First of all, those other groups will have the
appropriate expertise, and secondly, those are platform questions, not
questions about the C language itself.
But all this petty sniping kind of wants to dissuade me from
participating
here, and I wonder how much of you piss-ants bitch-slapping the
newbies has
driven them away.

Their loss.
And they're so fond of saying, "According to the Charter ..." Well,
Where's
The Charter?

Who says this?
A google advanced search on "charter group:news.announce.*
insubject:comp insubject:lang insubject:c" turned up:

[snip charter list]
As you can see, a charter for everything BUT comp.lang.c .

The name is the charter. A newsgroup about the C language. Not about
C on Windows, or drawing pictures with C, or driving microcontrollers
with C. What's so hard to understand about that?
Which makes it a pretty stupid thing to get all petty about.

I'll check in after awhile and see if any actual programmers have
shown up.

And how much code have *you* written, bubba?

[snip]
 
R

Richard Heathfield

cancal said:
Amen brother! Newbies, man the barricades. It's time for a regime change.

Cool idea. Let's get rid of all the people who know what they're talking
about, and have a comp.lang.c populated entirely by clueless newbies. That
sounds as much like a winning strategy as my mother sounds like Olivia
Newton John.
 
R

Randy Howard

Cool idea. Let's get rid of all the people who know what they're talking
about, and have a comp.lang.c populated entirely by clueless newbies.

I thought that was the purpose of AOL, without the focus on the C
programming language of course, but basically applying your approach
to all possible topics.
That sounds as much like a winning strategy as my mother sounds like
Olivia Newton John.

Security violation, you are definitely giving away your age. :)
 

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