BARRIER - json, thin, eventmachine - do not install on windows

[David Masover]

[...] - (off topic, off line, personal)
=20
Mr. Morrice.
=20
I hope you are aware that you have already crossed moral and legal
lines.

Unlikely.

Moral -- When you ask a group of volunteers for help, you _ask_. You don't=
=20
demand, with "requirements", and then refuse to read the responses because=
=20
they're "too complicated" without offering a single reason why. I would=20
actually consider it a moral obligation to point these things out, so that=
=20
others don't waste their time trying to engage you.

Legal -- I'm calling your bluff. You can either claim that troll is well-
defined enough that it is a factual claim, in which case, I think the evide=
nce=20
is against you -- and even if you were able to show it to be false, for it =
to=20
be slander, you would also have to show it to be malicious. If troll is not=
=20
well-defined enough to be a factual matter, then it is an opinion, and=20
opinions are not actionable -- if it is merely our _opinion_ that you are a=
=20
troll, it is also our right to express that opinion.

Legally, it's more complicated than that, of course. But there's also the=20
Streissand Effect -- if you do attempt to sue any of us because we called y=
ou=20
a troll, you're going to make headlines in any geek, Internet, or developer-
oriented news sources. The fact that the readers Slashdot, Digg, Reddit,=20
Wired, etc would all know that you couldn't handle someone calling you a tr=
oll=20
would do far more damage to your reputation than anything we say here.

So please, don't make legal threats. You know legal action over this cannot=
=20
possibly end well for you. Since you are hopefully smart enough not to purs=
ue=20
such legal action, mentioning that it "crosses legal lines" is both childis=
h=20
and irrelevant.

I hope that the professionals within this group will intervene at some
point, if the "attacks" on my person continue.

What form would you expect that intervention to take? There have been much=
=20
more heated flamewars, with much worse names than "troll" thrown around,=20
without people being banned from the list.

Or are you expecting people to speak out on your behalf? In that case, it=20
would help if you did anything constructive, even something which would=20
benefit you: Read and understand the "complicated" advice, or ask us questi=
ons=20
about it, and actually engage us, instead of:

And of course I hope that there are still people on this group which
are professional enough to simply reply based on a given requirement,
instead of starting to discuss the requirement.

It would be unprofessional of me not to discuss a requirement with an actua=
l=20
client who is actually paying me, so where does that leave you?

Consider: If the client wants a Java Web Start application which does nothi=
ng=20
but open a web browser pointed at a Flash application which does nothing bu=
t=20
grab XML over HTTP, pass it to a Silverlight app which applies an XSLT=20
transform to convert them to HTML, and finally render them in the browser...

It would be unprofessional, immoral, and stupid to "simply reply" based on=
=20
that requirement, let alone to actually build that nightmare. It would be m=
y=20
obligation as a developer, a professional, and a human being to at least=20
"discuss" it with the poor misguided user -- try to talk them out of it, or=
at=20
least figure out why they're doing it that way instead of applying the XSLT=
on=20
the server and serving plain HTML, or delivering the XML+XSLT to supporting=
=20
browsers, or at the very least, using JavaScript to perform this task rathe=
r=20
than three separate plugins.

Now consider your case. It would be unprofessional of me not to ask why you=
=20
cannot have build tools, as this would be a trivial solution to your proble=
m=20
without requiring anyone to do anything to any existing gems.

 

[Robert Klemme]

[...] - (off topic, off line, personal)

And of course I hope that there are still people on this group which
are professional enough to simply reply based on a given requirement,
instead of starting to discuss the requirement.

Originally I did not want to reply but I can't leave this statement of
Ilias uncommented: basically this means "shut up and answer my
questions". This is an insult to the complete community which is
trying to be helpful despite the reputation he has gained in the past.
That kind of attitude might work towards someone I am paying
(although even there it is bad style and not likely to improve the
outcome of the collaboration) but it is completely misguided towards a
community of volunteers who interact because of the fun or because
they like to discuss technical issues. Ilias, if you do not want to
discuss your requirement you don't have to. But we are equally free
in the way we reply so please keep that in mind. It's give and take
and communities like ours work only if there is a balance, giving more
than one takes usually works pretty well while the opposite doesn't.

It would be unprofessional of me not to discuss a requirement with an act= ual
client who is actually paying me, so where does that leave you?

Exactly!

Kind regards

robert

--=20
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/

 

[Christopher Dicely]

[...] - (off topic, off line, personal)

Mr. Morrice.

I hope you are aware that you have already crossed moral and legal
lines.

Unlikely.

Moral -- When you ask a group of volunteers for help, you _ask_. You don'= t
demand, with "requirements", and then refuse to read the responses becaus= e
they're "too complicated" without offering a single reason why. I would
actually consider it a moral obligation to point these things out, so tha= t
others don't waste their time trying to engage you.

Legal -- I'm calling your bluff. You can either claim that troll is well-
defined enough that it is a factual claim, in which case, I think the evi= dence
is against you -- and even if you were able to show it to be false, for i= t to
be slander, you would also have to show it to be malicious. If troll is n= ot
well-defined enough to be a factual matter, then it is an opinion, and
opinions are not actionable -- if it is merely our _opinion_ that you are= a
troll, it is also our right to express that opinion.

Well, all of this is approximately true of U.S. law (not quite though;
actual malice is only required in certain cases, though where it isn't
at least actual or constructive knowledge of the falsity of the
statement is still required.) There are jurisdictions that have much
looser standards when it comes to defamation, (e.g., the UK), and
plenty of jurisdictions are willing to treat anything on the internet
as subject to their law no matter where it originated or where the
notional victim is located. So its almost impossible to say anything
on the internet without there being an arguable case that you've
broken some law somewhere on Earth where the jurisdiction might
plausibly be convinced to actually treat you as subject to its law if
a case where brought against you, but as long as its not a
jurisdiction in which you have vulnerable assets, are likely to seek
to do business or travel, or a jurisdiction with the will and capacity
to forcibly reach into foreign jurisdictions to enforce the law in
question, or with which a jurisdiction meeting one of those
descriptions is likely to cooperate in enforcing the law, it really
doesn't matter all that much except in the theoretical sense.