I don't care for the way your childish insult aimed at Series Expansion
bears a resemblance to a mangling of my own name. I also suspect it is
not a coincidence. Why drag my name into this corner of the thread,
where I was not involved?
When reading between the lines of my previous post it should have been
clear that all this (meaning: that whole thread or threads) is precisely
not Lisp related. It has been taken to a "discussion" where we are
beyond rational behavior and I simply do not see why the Lispers only
should suffer from postings from our special friends Series and Seamus.
I am not a "special friend" nor do I inflict suffering. I find these
characterizations of me grossly rude, vulgar, unproductive, and
uncivilized. Please apologize, preferably to both of us but certainly to me.
The discussion is "beyond rational behavior" because our side's logical
arguments, evidence, citations, and rebuttals are met with insults,
hand-waves, exultations of faith, rude demands, non-sequiturs, off-topic
asides, and unsupported assertions, in roughly equal measure.
I find it especially disturbing that several people seem to genuinely
view myself and Series Expansion as evil, and to be singling us out for
particular hostility. I, for one, have been among the calmest
participants in this whole affair, with little in the way of flaming or
rudeness and even a fairly long absence. And most of the insults flung
my way were flung during that absence, at someone you'd apparently
assumed to have quit participating. That means they were both unprovoked
and, in some sense, spoken "behind my back". That's underhanded. Series
Expansion hasn't been much worse: from what I've skimmed, long detailed
arguments with chains of meticulous reasoning from first principles, and
a remarkably even temper when provoked by some pretty vicious insults
with only a handful of flames in response to such and more usually just
a calm statement that that sort of flamage does not support the case for
either side and is unproductive.
How can any rational observer agree with the tarring of the voices of
reason with the "evil" brush (or the "troll" brush, or any other
pejorative) in preference to these characters?:
1. A violent flamer with little of substance to say (Lew)
2. Several individuals who do attempt to argue their case, at least,
but who also liberally sprinkle their arguments with ad hominem
attacks.
3. Several more who largely refrain from flaming, but who accuse
others of flaming who did not and whose arguments consist largely
of unsupported assertions and exhortations of faith.
Any one of these categories contains worthier targets than I or Series
Expansion.
However, playing the blame game is also unproductive, so it would be
best for there to be no targets, no tarring of anybody with any brush.
So, can we either quit or get back to the business of civilly discussing
the relative merits of Java and Lisp please?
They are Java-boys and it would do us all good if the Java powers take
them down.
Threats and incitement to violence? Or, at least, incitements to
censorship? This is getting frankly ridiculous. It's a programming
language debate, not a fucking life-or-death matter. Can we not comport
ourselves like adults?
Oh, just for the record: No need to put my name in quotation marks. My
name really is Frank - or did you want to imply something else.?
He appears to do this with everyone's names. Mine and Series
Expansion's, too (the latter of which is certainly a pseudonym, mind).
Besides: This is Usenet. So, in the end, there's just our own countries'
laws that mark a border we can't cross - and this is true for all of
us. So, as long as our two friends are not breaking any laws in their
country, we of course simply have to be patient and have to wait until
they are loosing interest.
This is condescending and rude, since it implies that we're ranting or
otherwise irrational when nothing could be further from the truth.
use #:cl #:foo))