The problems in comp.lang.c

[Richard]

Jeff P. Bailey said:



In summary, I find your summary unconvincing.

You would. It put you and your arrogant nature in a poor light.

No, none of them do.

Actually they do.

Rubbish. In all but one of the cited cases, IIRC, I demonstrated from the
Standard that he was wrong. The fourth, I felt so obvious that I didn't
need to cite, but I can do so if you wish.

No, you demonstrated that you are incapable of not picking holes for the
sake of it.

I would much prefer my replies to present Jacob Navia in a positive light.
Unfortunately, he doesn't give me much opportunity.

Utter nonsense. Although it seems to have backfired. Jacob comes over as
a passionate , albeit human, C programmer whereas you come across as
someone with a personal agenda to belittle Jacob by hook or by crook at
every opportunity.

Your reply has lent credence to the theory that you may be too ready to
jump to conclusions on insufficient data. You also seem to think that
your

How much is sufficient? Is that in the standard too?

belief is of particular importance to me. It isn't. You believe what you
like. My own belief is that this group would be better off if Jacob Navia
learned what it's for.

Helping people in C related matters. He does do that.

 

[Antoninus Twink]

jacob navia wrote, On 27/03/08 22:00:

Stop lying about other peoples positions. They have been explained to
you far too often for it to be an accidental misrepresentation.

Let's play Heathfield's game of quoting old posts then:

Heathfield wrote in message (e-mail address removed)

(e-mail address removed) said:



Agreed.

Sounds like a ringing endorsement of Turbo C to me. I'm sure there's no
need to list his innumerable attacks on lcc-win.

And only today,

Heathfield wrote in message (e-mail address removed)

Keith Thompson said:



I would advocate as many C compilers as possible for beginning C
programmers. Why exclude Turbo C?

Do you still think it's a lie to claim that Heathfield is an advocate of
Turbo C?

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Heathfield plays a game in clc of trying to argue absurd points - for
example, that C doesn't have global variables. Sometimes he pushes this
too far - when he tries to claim that he doesn't have a deep-seated
personal vendetta against Jacob, that's really something noone's going
to believe for a second.

Does anybody ever believe anything that lying sack of crap says?

 

[Antoninus Twink]

Yes. What was *that* all about?

Same old, same old if I recall - another stupid attempt to humiliate
Jacob.

 

[Antoninus Twink]

Jeff P. Bailey said:



In summary, I find your summary unconvincing.

That's no surprise - you find everyone who doesn't share all your
opinions unconvincing. This dogmatism and absolutism is one of your
greatest faults, and has done great damage to clc.

No, none of them do.

Obviously false, as any neutral observer will testify.

I would much prefer my replies to present Jacob Navia in a positive light.
Unfortunately, he doesn't give me much opportunity.

Yeah, right. Of course you don't go through every one of Jacob's posts
with a fine toothcomb, looking for some petty little nit you can blow up
out of all proportion to carry on your guerilla war with him!

Your reply has lent credence to the theory that you may be too ready to
jump to conclusions on insufficient data. You also seem to think that your
belief is of particular importance to me. It isn't.

Right. You don't give a frick about the views of anyone other than
yourself. In most places, that's called unbelievable arrogance. That
fits.

My own belief is that this group would be better off if Jacob Navia
learned what it's for.

My own belief is that this group would be better off if your internet
connection was destroyed in a freak accident.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Antoninus Twink <[email protected]> sagely commented on the state
of the whacked out environment that we all know and love:
(On 28 Mar 2008 at 11:15, Richard Heathfield barfed up his usual crap)
....

That's no surprise - you find everyone who doesn't share all your
opinions unconvincing. This dogmatism and absolutism is one of your
greatest faults, and has done great damage to clc.

What I find most entertaining is the notion that, at this late stage,
Heathfield could be so brain dead as to actually purport to believe that
anyone, anywhere, puts the least bit of credibility to what he writes.

Obviously false, as any neutral observer will testify.

"Quite so"

Yeah, right. Of course you don't go through every one of Jacob's posts
with a fine toothcomb, looking for some petty little nit you can blow up
out of all proportion to carry on your guerilla war with him!

No, not at all...

Right. You don't give a frick about the views of anyone other than
yourself. In most places, that's called unbelievable arrogance. That
fits.

Actually, that's one thing Heathfield has (amazingly!) got right.
He really doesn't give a fig about anyone else's opinion(s).

My own belief is that this group would be better off if your internet
connection was destroyed in a freak accident.

Or worse...

 

[jxh]

[... laments about C topicality and fingers Richard H. for
bullying Jacob N. ...]

If I remember right, Richard had started a thread with suggestions
on expanding the topics discussed in this newsgroup.

I actually don't mind for *any* C programming question to be asked
here (since the name of the newsgroup sort of invites it), but the
answers to the questions should be maximally portable. If a
maximally portable solution isn't possible, then the answer should
explain that, and redirect the poster to an appropriate resource.

Threads has been given as an example. Here is a possible scenario:

Q: I have a multi-threaded application written in C. One thread is
spinning in a loop checking for the value of a flag to change that
will be changed by a different thread. However, even after the 2nd
thread changes the flag, the 1st thread doesn't detect the change.
Why is this happening, and how can I fix it?

Given this kind of question, there is a Standard C component that
may be useful to the developer: declaring the flag variable to
be volatile, and this should be provided as part of the answer.
But, the complete answer is that even volatile may be insufficient
(particularly in a multi-processor environment), and so some sort
of barrier synchronization is likely to be required to propogate
a change made in one processor to another one. However, barrier
synchronization APIs will be system specific, and the poster
must be redirected to some other resource (perhaps POSIX,
or perhaps a CPU architecture specific resource) to find the
best answer for their application.

The C FAQ already provides some precedence for giving answers to
platform specific solutions for one of the most commonly available
environments at the time the FAQ was written (e.g., DOS), so it
would not be such a big stretch to extend a helping hand to at least
point the user in the right direction. Certainly the poster of a
question can understand that a superior solution specific to their
platform may be available from a more suitable resource than
comp.lang.c.

This would be more helpful than dismissing the question out of hand
because of topicality concerns.

I have read many of Jacob's posts, and he is at times overzealous
about providing platform specific solutions (particularly,
solutions that his implementation of lcc provieds), and he does
at times get the specifics of the C Standard wrong. I think
everyone who has posted solutions here have had their answers
nitpicked. What usually happens is that you get better at
creating answers that have fewer nits. Someone that wants to help
others will usually want to provide as accurate a statement as
possible. So nits that are picked should be taken gratefully, and
then used for providing better answers next time.

-- James

 

[Jeff P. Bailey]

That's no surprise - you find everyone who doesn't share all your
opinions unconvincing. This dogmatism and absolutism is one of your
greatest faults, and has done great damage to clc.




Obviously false, as any neutral observer will testify.




Yeah, right. Of course you don't go through every one of Jacob's posts
with a fine toothcomb, looking for some petty little nit you can blow up
out of all proportion to carry on your guerilla war with him!




Right. You don't give a frick about the views of anyone other than
yourself. In most places, that's called unbelievable arrogance. That
fits.




My own belief is that this group would be better off if your internet
connection was destroyed in a freak accident.

Although I believe Mr Twink may be a troll, I suspect some of his
assessments are rather close to the truth than Mr Heathfield would like
to admit...

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Jeff P. Bailey said:

Although I believe Mr Twink may be a troll, I suspect some of his
assessments are rather close to the truth than Mr Heathfield would like
to admit...

If you truly believe that, then we are so far apart in our outlook that
there is little, if anything, that we are likely to be able to learn from
each other. But consider this - how much C help does "Mr Twink" provide to
those seeking it in this group? Compare and contrast. And whilst we're on
the subject, how much C help do *you* provide to those seeking it in this
group? Again, compare and contrast. I'm not saying this to attack you, but
to challenge you. If you want a better group, post better articles.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Richard Heathfield <[email protected] (you got that right!)> barfed
up his usual crap:
....

If you truly believe that, then we are so far apart in our outlook that
there is little, if anything, that we are likely to be able to learn from
each other. But consider this - how much C help does "Mr Twink" provide to
those seeking it in this group? Compare and contrast. And whilst we're on
the subject, how much C help do *you* provide to those seeking it in this
group? Again, compare and contrast. I'm not saying this to attack you, but
to challenge you. If you want a better group, post better articles.

Oh. My. God.

 

[Jeff P. Bailey]

Jeff P. Bailey said:




If you truly believe that, then we are so far apart in our outlook that
there is little, if anything, that we are likely to be able to learn from
each other. But consider this - how much C help does "Mr Twink" provide to
those seeking it in this group? Compare and contrast. And whilst we're on
the subject, how much C help do *you* provide to those seeking it in this
group? Again, compare and contrast. I'm not saying this to attack you, but
to challenge you. If you want a better group, post better articles.

Once again, you have presented a misleading impression by your snipping.
It was Mr Twink's analysis of your dealings with Jacob that I found to
have a particularly cutting vein of truth in it.

I am glad if you answer people's C questions (at least within your
determination of "topicality") here; however, it does seem to me that
you have a deep-seated bitterness, anger and hate inside that manifest
themselves in your bullying of jacob navia. I hope for your sake that
you can overcome these, and I think that would improve the atmosphere of
the group enormously too.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Jeff P. Bailey said:

On 29/3/2008 10:34, Richard Heathfield wrote:


Once again, you have presented a misleading impression by your snipping.

I snip the stuff I'm not replying to, in line with Usenet convention. Your
original text is likely to remain on news servers for about as long as my
reply, and of course they are both archived, so I can hardly be considered
guilty of misleading anyone. Had I indulged in selective quotation (to
give a very simple example, quoting "The behaviour of this program is not
well-defined" as "The behaviour of this program is ... well-defined" would
certainly constitute selective quotation), that would be a different
matter. But I don't do that.

It was Mr Twink's analysis of your dealings with Jacob that I found to
have a particularly cutting vein of truth in it.

Then what you find differs greatly from what I find.

I am glad if you answer people's C questions (at least within your
determination of "topicality") here; however, it does seem to me that
you have a deep-seated bitterness, anger and hate inside that manifest
themselves in your bullying of jacob navia.

Then what seems to you differs greatly from what seems to me.

I hope for your sake that
you can overcome these, and I think that would improve the atmosphere of
the group enormously too.

What's to overcome? You're begging the question. I don't hate Mr Navia (or
indeed anyone), and it's strange that you should think otherwise. Our
disagreements are somewhat blown out of proportion by the trolls. There
have indeed been times when my replies to Mr Navia have been rather
acerbic in tone, but I would remind you that there have also been times
when his replies to me have been considerably *more* acerbic, and yet I
don't see you criticising him.

I'm an easy target for critics, because when I'm shown to be wrong I accept
the fact (and actually I sometimes accept this *too* quickly, as was
demonstrated relatively recently in the ASCII conversion thread). Mr
Navia, on the other hand, fights technical criticisms with every weapon at
his disposal, even including foul language, which can certainly make it
much harder for the thin-skinned to point out the flaws in his articles.
Is that why you attack me rather than him?

If you want the atmosphere of the group to improve enormously, drop the
hypocrisy and start posting positive, constructive articles about C
instead of (or, if you insist, *as well as*) complaining about those who
are already so doing. And if you must complain, at least have the
intellectual honesty to be even-handed.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Richard Heathfield <[email protected]> barfed up his usual crap,
leading up to:
....

If you want the atmosphere of the group to improve enormously, drop the
hypocrisy and start posting positive, constructive articles about C
instead of (or, if you insist, *as well as*) complaining about those who
are already so doing. And if you must complain, at least have the
intellectual honesty to be even-handed.

To which I can only add, once again:

Oh. My. God.

 

[Antoninus Twink]

Jeff P. Bailey said:


I snip the stuff I'm not replying to, in line with Usenet convention. Your
original text is likely to remain on news servers for about as long as my
reply, and of course they are both archived, so I can hardly be considered
guilty of misleading anyone.

Come off it. Distorting other people's words is your bread and butter.
It's all part of your power games.

What's to overcome? You're begging the question. I don't hate Mr Navia (or
indeed anyone),

That assertion has zero credibility given your daily behavior as far
back as anyone can remember.

and it's strange that you should think otherwise.

No, it isn't. What's strange is that you're cut off from reality to the
point where you find it strange.

 

[Default User]

Jeff P. Bailey wrote:

Although I believe Mr Twink may be a troll, I suspect some of his
assessments are rather close to the truth than Mr Heathfield would
like to admit...

You're either an idiot or troll yourself.

*plonk*




Brian

 

[Antoninus Twink]

Jeff P. Bailey wrote:



You're either an idiot or troll yourself.

*plonk*

Bwian seems to be off his medication again...

 

[Richard]

Bwian seems to be off his medication again...

"Indeed".

He has all the traits of a group hanger on - constantly hiding behind
killfiles, announcing who he killfiles and posting nothing but net nanny
rejoinders and support for his hero.