jacob navia said: [...]
spinoza1111wrote, On 08/05/08 08:51:
<snip>
Navia? Didn't he implement C?
He took a C compiler written by someone else, extended it, added a
debugger and for all I know might have implemented the entire IDE
himself.
This is, I think, a lie at worst.
Your lies are obviously a "neutral description of the facts".
Lies? Are you saying that you *did* write lcc-win32 from scratch? If so,
please make up your mind whether you did or whether you didn't, because
you are on record as saying that you acquired rights to the lcc compiler
and modified it, which is very different from writing lcc-win32 from
scratch. (See below.)
Modifying existing software is often more difficult than writing it
anew.
It is very rare that I can find it in my heart to agree with you, but here
I unhesitatingly concur. It /is/ harder to modify someone else's code than
to write one's own, all else being equal. Nobody has said otherwise, as
far as I know.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that Mr Navia modified an existing compiler.
That statement is not intended either to attack or to support him. It
simply describes what happened. He has said as much himself. So why he
continues to deny it is beyond me.
Whoa. This makes no sense:
"He has said as much himself. So why he continues to deny it is beyond
me."
Navia can't "have said as much himself" AND "continually deny" the
same proposition.
My dear boy, I am aware that last January, you rather froze up while
swotting a sparknotes test over logical and and or as implemented in C+
+, but surely you know that in logic, "p || !p" is always true, and
what you assert above, "p && !p" is NEVER true.
I am sure that as chap says in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, chap who rather
reminds me of you, "computers are your fortay".
Which means that the error above is an indication that your psychotic
posting is causing an overwhelm.
I don't suggest people take meds, since I saw basic honesty, decency
and community work better for Nash. I suggest instead that you take a
hol. Go to Spain, go to Gibraltar, go to a match in what you chaps
call football. But for your own sake and lest you make yourself even
more of a complete buffoon, desist for a while.
You have plenty of non-psychotic personality traits I am sure. Since
"in spite of all temptations to belong to other nations, you are an
English man", I am certain you do not torment small animals, for the
English invented the notion of not pulling the ears off mice and cats.
Above, you intelligently and graciously concede my point as to the
difficulty of software maintenance.
Which is why I am concerned that your addiction may have gotten the
better of you, and this is why I counsel and intervene here.
This may explain why lcc-win32 doesn't claim conformance to any standard..
Yeah, and that's why it's useful. It is logically impossible and
pragmatically a waste of time to "standardize" C, and I can prove it:
1. One standardizes why? For portability in the main.
2. But because of aliasing, #include and #define, no C program, no
matter how conformant, can be ported to another platform, or used in a
truly modular, plug-in way without a line by line audit
3. Ergo, argal (as First Gravedigger said in Hamlet), standardization
is a massive waste of time and we can only conclude that the C99
standardization effort was a play-pen for semi-retired and burned out
programmers who couldn't get chicks, like Herb could.
Precisely. He acquired the rights. He did not write the compiler from
scratch.
Nobody disagrees over this fact, nor its interpretation. You concede
above that his task was more and not less difficult than a from
scratch compiler. I can only conclude that with no case, you continue
your nonsense because you're addicted to bullying people who
accomplish something, and to getting the last word.
There, there, Edward. Time for meds?
**** you, Richard: **** you, very much. Your reference to "meds" is
sickening, because "meds" destroy people, including older programmers
hounded out of the profession (no, not me, ass hole: I leave bad
situations) for insisting that they need to be treated as men and not
boys.
Nobody has suggested there was. In fact, until *you* used the word
"plagiarism", it had not even been mentioned.
**** you, Richard Heathfield: **** you very much. You think you've
mastered the snide little accusation but we're seeing through your
games. You need to desist and you need to seek psychotherapy (not
"meds").
The 'quiet and "factual" tone' is inevitable when I'm quietly stating
facts. And I'm not trying to destroy Mr Navia's reputation, or yours, or
indeed anyone's.
Yes, you are. It's time to act like a man, and admit the pain you
cause people with your behavior, and start to change.
I've met a lot of psychotics in the corporation, and they are
characterised by a constant reference to rules which although they
bend them and circumvent them, are narrated as unchangeable in a way
designed to cause psychological disorder in others, by creating an
addictive system, without a memory.
At any time, working on behalf of a barrister, I can prepare, using
simple tools, an analysis of your behavior which shows you
deliberately and with legally actionable malice entering conversations
constituted on mutual recognition and collegial respect, choosing who
you think is the weaker discussant, and then, using oh so restrained
speech, shitting all over that person, his online standing, and his
offline family and employability, with only the most superficial and
casual reference to technical issues, on which your performance on
last January's test show you to have only mediocre standing.
Bullies think that their conduct is unnoticed even as another form of
addict, the alcoholic, believes nobody smells his breath. But I spoke
to a team of international lawyers and programmers at DePaul Univ in
1995, who were using a data base to analyze specific instances of
extreme bullying (genocide, in fact) in Bosnia during the 1992..1995
war by thugs who you remind me of, and these people have helped to
nail bigtime operators to the wall. You and the rest of your ilk can
laugh as did the murderer Arkan laughed, but the mill of the gods is
grinding away.
You can stop possible legal actions by acting with a basic decency I
know you possess, and simply taking a break as I have, enabling
lurkers and others to start a new conversation.
For ten years I've been trying to help C programmers to become better C
programmers, not just via the book but also via Usenet and IRC. In those
ten years, I /have/, in fact, acquired a reputation - and one that is in
my view undeserved - as a C expert. Actually, I'm not a C expert and I
don't think I have ever claimed to be one - but yes, okay, I know C pretty
well. If I criticise the content of some of Jacob Navia's articles, it is
because they manifest a demonstrable misunderstanding of the C language, a
misunderstanding that can be verified by consultation of the document that
defines the language. (The particular section to consult does, of course,
vary from case to case.)
The C99 standards document simply does not constitute any such
definition. The language was not defined to be portable. All Dennis
and Brian wanted was a cool programming language for the PDP-10, and
in 1971, programmers like them simply had no conception of the sorts
of issues that arise as regards portability. Issues such as lazy
versus nonlazy or and and were being ignored, perhaps not by Dennis
and Brian, but in the general field, and Dennis and Brian simply had
no way of foreseeing how C would be used.
The C99 effort was a fraud using public funds and a precursor of the
shit Halliburton pulled in Iraq, since the industry simply ignored it,
because a conformant compiler would not compile 90% of legacy code,
and since C is so very out of date, that's what a compiler is needed
for!