subroutine stack and C machine model

[spinoza1111]

ah, but how do you know they were using your definition of clear?
Perhaps they were using Seebach's or Heathfield's or mine or... well
practically anyone but yours.

The only sensible definition has to do with the clarity of text (as
opposed to the clarity of water), and the only definition in the COED
or OED of contemporary usage defines the clarity of a text as its
understandability, and understandability is knowability. Knowledge is
justified true belief, as I have said.

Which means that in calling Herb "clear", they lacked a language for
the point they wanted to make. It was that they want Microsoft
implementations to go away and leave them alone, for they don't
understand those implementations.

 

[spinoza1111]

If there's anything worse than a redneck ignoramus, it's one with
broadband and a working credit card. Look at definition number 7.
We already pointed that out -- but you seem not to understand how [....]

Who's "we"? You're alone, I'd wot.

on the dictionary argument I'm with Mr Seebach. I've now quoted three
dictionaries that disagree with you. You really don't seem to
understand how dictionaries work (or you're pretending not to because
you won't admit you're wrong).

No, you've quoted inferior dictionaries and don't understand alternate
meanings. Furthermore, in use, "clear" as applied to "text" implies
"true".

"This book is a clear introduction to astrophysics" means two things:

(1) This book is not misleading
(2) This book is easy to understand

Note, however, that (2) implies (1), because "understanding" is
knowing, and knowing is, once again justified true belief. The only
way of saying that a book is false in a way that is easy to understand
or grok is to say that "the book is clearly wrong", which is logically
independent of "the book is clear": in the former, "clearly" as an
adverb applies to the main verb and the whole sentence, and it
ascribes the clarity to itself, never to "the book".

The EARLY Wittgenstein did say that anything that can be said can be
said clearly whether true or false. But what he meant was "in my
calculus", in his equivalent of a formal programming language. Herb
was writing in a natural language which for a mature Wittgenstein a
"form of life" in which there is, I believe, a fundamental asymmettry
between the true and the false such that false is never clear, because
in civil conversation we always exercise a tolerance, without which
conversation cannot take place.

In this form of tolerance, we always try to find the truth in what the
other says.

Now this sounds not to apply at all to programming for the simple
reason that autistic twerps are attracted to the apparent decidability
and lack of ambiguity of programming as a retreat from a messy world:
but the "structured walkthrough" discovery of old and the "extreme
pair programming" discovery of recent years means is that even in
programming we much love one another or die, or create buggy
software...while bragging how we don't...in jobs where the person
bragging that he doesn't, no longer creates code, but finds "issues"
to send to the "real" experts.

Constant fault finding by half-educated managers, employment-at-will,
and jobs as "consultants" which are just glorified temp jobs create
Fascistic levels of hatred for other people which emerge in Vitriolic
Tirades, fueled by envy at Herb's apparent financial success. I mean,
even my own small quarterly royalty check from Apress is pretty nifty
for it's money for which I don't have to work now which I didn't spend
in getting to work, or in buying tools for work, or in buying
overpriced food in restaurants. Given Herb's sales he may not have to
work, and this, I think, drives his enemies batshit.

If both Knuth and Dijkstra are right, and "programming" is
"communicating intentions clearly to another human about how you plan
to use a computer", then it was Seebach's responsibility, at which he
failed miserably, to discern the forest for the trees, and Herb's
intentions. In talking about a stack growing towards a heap in high
memory, Herb's intention was to show a concrete example of the two
fundamental runtime data structures in an instantiated way that the
student could play with until he understood why some things must be
malloc'd. He did so.

[...] a dictionary works.  That gives you that one of many meanings has a
particular word, one of the many meanings of which is the meaning
you were asserting.

The Compact OED highlights the important meanings, whereas this rube
was overwhelmed by the full OED:

the thunder of desparate back-pedalling. You claimed my dictionaries
were bad because they weren't the OED. Now when someone quotes the OED
*that's* wrong as well. I've quoted the Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary is that as good as the Compact OED or not?

<check Amazon>

You Are An Idiot. The Compact OED has the *same text* as the full OED!
presumably you consider the important bits are the highlighted bits.
So do tell, which bits were highlighted under the entry for "clarity"?

<snip snip>

 

[Colonel Harlan Sanders]

No, you've quoted inferior dictionaries and don't understand alternate
meanings. Furthermore, in use, "clear" as applied to "text" implies
"true".

No, it does not.
And I quoted the complete Oxford English Dictionary entry to prove it.
Is that "inferior"?
What's to understand? None of the alternate meanings gibed with yours.

It's clear you're wrong, equally clear you won't admit it, so that's
my last word on the topic.

 

[Keith Thompson]

<snip>

I think it's time to add you to my killfile. Bye.

A pity, since he's right.

 

[Seebs]

A pity, since he's right.

As with most complicated issues, I think there's merit to both sides.

There have been a number of subthreads in the discussion which ended up
being interesting and substantive discussion on C. This is, however,
crippled by the tendency for Mr. Nilges to wander off into tinfoil hat
class conspiracy theories, and fall back on elaborate rants about how
horrible and broken C is. Even those would be of some use if he were
capable of advancing arguments and showing his work, but he's not, so
it's mostly down to occasional interesting bits as people discuss questions
like whether or not there's a reason for the spec not to specify order
of evaluation.

I've concluded that it's not worth it, because he's simply too incoherent,
but I'm not convinced that it's particularly harmful for Mr. Heathfield
(who is noticably more even-tempered than I am) to correct the numerous
errors in those rants for the benefit of hypothetical newbies.

In short, I have come to the conclusion that playing with Spinny isn't
particularly productive, but I don't think my case is strong enough to
justify telling other people that they shouldn't do it.

-s

 

[Seebs]

You Are An Idiot. The Compact OED has the *same text* as the full OED!

Yeah, the difference is it has ridiculously tiny print and a very impressive
magnifying glass. (I grew up with one.)

-s

 

[Phil Carmody]

Your posting history shows little evidence of your experience with any
kind of argument other than "proof by inane verbosity".

Two objections:
Firstly at least half the time it's more like verbose inanity;
Secondly, he's never even approached anything approximating a 'proof'.

Phil

 

[Dann Corbit]

As with most complicated issues, I think there's merit to both sides.

There have been a number of subthreads in the discussion which ended up
being interesting and substantive discussion on C. This is, however,
crippled by the tendency for Mr. Nilges to wander off into tinfoil hat
class conspiracy theories, and fall back on elaborate rants about how
horrible and broken C is. Even those would be of some use if he were
capable of advancing arguments and showing his work, but he's not, so
it's mostly down to occasional interesting bits as people discuss questions
like whether or not there's a reason for the spec not to specify order
of evaluation.

I've concluded that it's not worth it, because he's simply too incoherent,
but I'm not convinced that it's particularly harmful for Mr. Heathfield
(who is noticably more even-tempered than I am) to correct the numerous
errors in those rants for the benefit of hypothetical newbies.

In short, I have come to the conclusion that playing with Spinny isn't
particularly productive, but I don't think my case is strong enough to
justify telling other people that they shouldn't do it.

Let's be honest here.

We all feel a little stress from time to time, and it's nice to give the
old punching bag a good working over.

The people who are responding are responding because he is an easy
target to pound into oblivion, and he's vitriolic enough to make it
funny.

There is a certain level of entertainment in slapping someone alongside
the head with a large dead fish, and watching him fall into the water.

I am very, very sure that nobody here has a real goal of reforming Mr.
Nigles into a valued contributor. It's just slapstick stress release.

Intitial efforts, of course, were right-hearted. But now, we're just
piling on. Oh, sure, there is the old saw about preventing newbies from
being mislead by the traditional "five pounds of stupid in a four pound
can". But anyone who has bothered to read the threads with
comprehension can see that such safegards are not really needed.

And I too, must confess to occasional baby seal bludgeoning. Not my
proudest moments to be sure, but we all have stress to relieve from time
to time.

IMO-YMMV

 

[Flash Gordon]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

There's a group by the name of alt.usage.english for when you want ti
discus what the work "clear" means, but you have been discussing it
here. You can reasonably argue the discussing whether Schildt's book are
correct or not is topical (although trying to do so with Nilges is
obviously pointless), but I can't see how you can argue that discussing
the meaning of words not defined by the C standard is topical when you
can simply re-word your claim about Schilt's books to avoid the word in
question.

So argue with Nilges about C if you must, but not about philosophy or
the English language.

 

[Flash Gordon]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

There's a group by the name of alt.usage.english for when you want ti
discus what the work "clear" means, but you have been discussing it
here. You can reasonably argue the discussing whether Schildt's book are
correct or not is topical (although trying to do so with Nilges is
obviously pointless), but I can't see how you can argue that discussing
the meaning of words not defined by the C standard is topical when you
can simply re-word your claim about Schilt's books to avoid the word in
question.

So argue with Nilges about C if you must, but not about philosophy or
the English language.

 

[Phil Carmody]

Let's be honest here.

We all feel a little stress from time to time, and it's nice to give the
old punching bag a good working over.

The people who are responding are responding because he is an easy
target to pound into oblivion, and he's vitriolic enough to make it
funny.

There is a certain level of entertainment in slapping someone alongside
the head with a large dead fish, and watching him fall into the water.

I am very, very sure that nobody here has a real goal of reforming Mr.
Nigles into a valued contributor. It's just slapstick stress release.

Intitial efforts, of course, were right-hearted. But now, we're just
piling on. Oh, sure, there is the old saw about preventing newbies from
being mislead by the traditional "five pounds of stupid in a four pound
can". But anyone who has bothered to read the threads with
comprehension can see that such safegards are not really needed.

And I too, must confess to occasional baby seal bludgeoning. Not my
proudest moments to be sure, but we all have stress to relieve from time
to time.

IMO-YMMV

My mileage is identical to yours. Thanks for posting my views
for me so eloquently.

(Except I don't view them as baby seals being bludgeoned. More like
burning ants with a magnifying glass in the summer sun.)

Phil

 

[spinoza1111]

No, it does not.
And I quoted the complete Oxford English Dictionary entry to prove it.

The dictionary reports usage, and in using the complete OED you
demonstrated that you're not qualified to use such a tool, which is
not meant for a person without real education or culture, which you
seem to be.

You seem to be such a person because such a person would know the
difference between "quoting" with understanding and copy-paste. You
shoveled the shit into the post without even being able to point to
the right (applicable) definition, the only usage which refers to a
text, and this definition, more findable in the compact OED, links
clarity to understanding, which is linked in the COED to knowledge,
which is linked, in the COED, to justified true belief.

You can't buy learning with a credit card, Hoss. In natural language,
the false is always unclear because for the same reason we try and
often succeed in finding a parse for a technically ungrammatical
sentence, we try when listening to find an interpretation (such as
"he's being ironic") which makes what is told us true. Otherwise we're
wasting our time and I seem to be wasting my time on you.

Is that "inferior"?
What's to understand? None of the alternate meanings gibed with yours.

Duh, that's because the one about understandability of texts applies.

 

[spinoza1111]

In

spinoza1111wrote:


Agreed, for a wonder!


I'm okay with that, too.


What you are missing is that it is possible to understand a false
statement.

Not in the real world. And you're forgetting the situation in which
you see what seems a bug and which turns out to be a feature because
the user has adapted to the bug.

 

[spinoza1111]

There's a group by the name of alt.usage.english for when you want ti
discus what the work "clear" means, but you have been discussing it
here. You can reasonably argue the discussing whether Schildt's book are
correct or not is topical (although trying to do so with Nilges is
obviously pointless), but I can't see how you can argue that discussing
the meaning of words not defined by the C standard is topical when you
can simply re-word your claim about Schilt's books to avoid the word in
question.

So argue with Nilges about C if you must, but not about philosophy or
the English language.

Good idea, because they will lose. They don't read enough esp. outside
their field.

 

[spinoza1111]

As with most complicated issues, I think there's merit to both sides.

There have been a number of subthreads in the discussion which ended up
being interesting and substantive discussion on C.  This is, however,
crippled by the tendency for Mr. Nilges to wander off into tinfoil hat
class conspiracy theories, and fall back on elaborate rants about how

A common use of "conspiracy theory" today is to describe commonly
accepted knowledge that someone doesn't know. For example, you were
unaware of the pre-history of C++. Therefore that's, for you, a
"conspiracy theory".

horrible and broken C is.  Even those would be of some use if he were
capable of advancing arguments and showing his work, but he's not, so

Claiming I don't is no proof. My "verbosity" is in part my willingness
to restate and precis previous arguments as opposed to "spamming" the
discussion, as you are spamming it, with the same repeated claims
about me, any one of which could harm my reputation were it not for
the fact that I'm good at what I do. You are, as Kenny has pointed
out, constantly repeating your unfounded claim that I don't know what
I'm talking about when I made it clear that (1) I'm relearning C by
actual coding and (2) able to cite references.

it's mostly down to occasional interesting bits as people discuss questions
like whether or not there's a reason for the spec not to specify order
of evaluation.

I've concluded that it's not worth it, because he's simply too incoherent,
but I'm not convinced that it's particularly harmful for Mr. Heathfield
(who is noticably more even-tempered than I am) to correct the numerous
errors in those rants for the benefit of hypothetical newbies.

In short, I have come to the conclusion that playing with Spinny isn't
particularly productive, but I don't think my case is strong enough to
justify telling other people that they shouldn't do it.

You haven't come to any conclusion nor will you leave. Instead, you
will keep replying but with less and less homework to back up your
claims.

 

[spinoza1111]

Does that "no" refer to the statement about clear, or about English.

Because if it's the latter it explains the former - you appear to be
using the word "clear" with a different, specialised, meaning to
everybody else.

Clear in normal use like this means "comprehensible".  Not "correct".

Google counts are often flaky, but ''Results 1 - 10 of about 131,000 for
"clear but wrong"'' might suggest something.

It suggests that techies don't know how to write even when they think
they do. The first link is an anti-Clinton rant from some techie who
was back in the nineties getting what I've called welfare for white
males who wants to take away opportunity from poor and minorities. The
second link, one of those useless articles by a techie who thinks he
can write about how to write documentation, uses the category "clear
but wrong" mindlessly because of the basic technical superstition:
that a programming language represents a higher clarity than natural
language when under the Knuth/Dijkstra rule (programming is the
communication of intent as to using computers) programming languages
are just as fuzzy as natural languages.

A civilized person would never describe a text as "clear but wrong".
He would say it is "clearly wrong" because you CANNOT be clear and
wrong at the same time. This is, for the last time, because clarity
leads to understanding and understanding leads to knowledge and
knowledge leads to justified true belief. As soon as Seebach wrote
"clear but wrong" he showed himself a bad writer with no standing
criticising a good writer. As soon as he reveals that he does not
program on the job apart from detours and frolics writing internal
tools, the other leg of his standing disappeared. He would still
retain the right to criticise, but not to personalize the criticism
and make Schildt the problem when Seebach's lack of standing is the
problem.

For the umpteenth time - /PLEASE/ snip unneeded content and - especially
- signatures.  Or get some software that will do it for you.

 

[Colonel Harlan Sanders]

The dictionary reports usage, and in using the complete OED you
demonstrated that you're not qualified to use such a tool, which is
not meant for a person without real education or culture, which you
seem to be.

You seem to be such a person because such a person would know the
difference between "quoting" with understanding and copy-paste.

The reason I quoted the complete entry was to prove that the words you
claimed were there were not.
I would indeed have quoted only the relevant passage IF THERE WAS ONE.
Enough people have said your definition does not exist. You kept on
about how they used "inferior dictionaries". Yet still omitted to cite
the relevant passage yourself. That slab of text was to demonstrate,
conclusively, that it is not.

You
shoveled the shit into the post without even being able to point to
the right (applicable) definition, the only usage which refers to a
text, and this definition, more findable in the compact OED, links
clarity to understanding, which is linked in the COED to knowledge,
which is linked, in the COED, to justified true belief.

Now you admit that your equation of "clarity" with "truth" is derived
by three tenuous "links", all of which require accepting an
equivalence that does not exist.

Also, the "Compact OED" is exactly the same text as the full OED, just
printed smaller in one volume. I guess you're actually talking about
the "Concise OED".

You can't buy learning with a credit card, Hoss.

I didn't buy my dictionary or my education with a credit card.

I read dictionaries, I care about the meaning and history of words.
Have for over 40 years. So **** you and your sneers that you are the
only person in the whole world who can look up words in a dictionary.
What a conceited fool you are.

In natural language,
the false is always unclear because for the same reason we try and
often succeed in finding a parse for a technically ungrammatical
sentence, we try when listening to find an interpretation (such as
"he's being ironic") which makes what is told us true. Otherwise we're
wasting our time and I seem to be wasting my time on you.


Duh, that's because the one about understandability of texts applies.

Duh, it doesn't say a word about "truth".

And that really is a much better place to leave this thread.

 

[Seebs]

Really? No one springs to mind.

You and a couple of other anonymous trolls were pretty much the bulk of
the exceptions. There's some pretty competent folks here, and some newbies
who will probably be pretty competent in a few years -- but I've certainly
worked with worse.

-s

 

[Antoninus Twink]

In general, most of the active participants here strike me as people
who'd be pretty fun to work with.

Really? No one springs to mind.

 

[Tim Streater]

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:29:01 -0800 (PST), spinoza1111


I didn't buy my dictionary or my education with a credit card.

I read dictionaries, I care about the meaning and history of words.
Have for over 40 years. So **** you and your sneers that you are the
only person in the whole world who can look up words in a dictionary.
What a conceited fool you are.

Not just a fool, but a Fool. But not even a competent Fool, with his
rambling (zzzzz ...zzzz) and turgid posts.

He also had to pretend to some support here by creating his "Kenny" and
"richard" sock puppets.