i told Ann i'd hack jack's computer and knock him offline. i asked jack to logoff AIM for 20 sec. so jack logs off and i told Ann i did it. the most amusing thing went wrong: before he left, jack told Ann "Elliot is asking me to logoff for 20 sec. brb"

From the ruby-talk mailing list. Quoting removed, I think it's readable out of context.


How can a (coding) convention be *wrong*, instead of just less useful, less practical?

The same argument applies to other conventions. Why is Sati *wrong*, instead of just a less useful, less pleasant way to live?

Ideas have broad consequences that can't be arbitrarily restricted: they reach out to other fields. The full answer to the Sati case should include whether anything is wrong at all, and whether practical considerations have moral consequences. Those issues are important to the question about coding.

We can even take a dialog about Sati, and then use some of the ideas to argue about coding. Most of them will work just as well about either topic.

Jim: "Sure, Sati sounds horrible to us, but they are accustomed to it, and would be unhappy to live another way. It has practical consequences, like reducing how many women are available to knit, but wealth is only a convenience."Chloe: "Medical textbooks are a kind of wealth, and medicine matters. With less knitting, they won't be able to buy as high quality medical books."

So, back to coding. This medical textbook argument will work great. Some programmers write tools for doing page layouts, and for making diagrams. Those tools help us make better medical textbooks. The more convenient and practical the coding conventions of the programmers, the sooner we will have higher quality medical textbooks.

The idea that medical textbook production is a *practical* issue with *moral* consequences can be transplanted just fine between the two cases: it has reach.

This isn't conclusive, of course. Maybe you don't see the moral value in medicine. But I think it's getting somewhere, to tie those things together. Most of us are probably persuaded by now. And if we were to continue on, about Sati, or coding conventions, we'd continue on in exactly the same way -- discussing medicine -- because it's all tied to the same issue now.

We must bear in mind that the truth is never clear. If it was, no one would ever disagree with us.

We must bear in mind that the more ignorant a person is of a subject, the more receptive he will be to our advice. Every time a person asks a question he has recognised his own ignorance, so it is a commonplace occurrence for a person to know he doesn't know everything.

We must bear in mind that pessimism and defeatism never solve problems, so it is better to be optimistic about whether a person can or will be persuaded of a good idea.

We must not be scared to disagree. People disagree all the time. But this does not make them hurt each other. It is not necessary to force agreement from a child, or worry overly about what he believes. That is his choice.

We should keep a sense of perspective. The worst that could happen is frequently better than the price of intervening.

We must stop thinking of all situations as the parent choosing what will happen. That is the model of a benevolent dictator. And one of the flaws is the enormous pressure and responsibility it puts on the *parent*.

post

thread

Link

Scott Ott writes:

Just a month after Colorado high school teacher Jay Bennish was caught on tape by a student as he ranted against President George Bush, capitalism and the United States in general

But the rant had a large anti-Israel component that was, in my opinion, even more unfair than the anti-US comments. It included that Israel was formed by the West as appeasement to widespread Jewish terrorism and assassination.

I think some liberals (in the modern sense meaning 'leftist') believe this or similar:

All voluntary actions are self-interest based, therefore to rise above self-interest and have an ideal society *requires* involuntary actions: government force.

Rantissi killing: World reaction

Dear God, the entire world except Israel and USA condemned killing a major player in Hamas. And USA's statement was far too weak.

My preferred statement by the USA would be something like:

Good riddance to bad men. We pray Israel will continue this policy of making the world a better place. We are currently developing methods to coordinate with Israel to aid in future strikes. We will treat any condemnation of this action as condemnation of the United States as well. We wish to stand united with Israel, and the Jews, hand in hand, if they will have us.

I realise the "wish to" and "if they will have us" is a bit weak for a public statement, but i can dream.

The most interesting quote was:

Lebanese Culture Minister Ghazi al-Aridi:

"This is an ongoing soap opera and we'll see more murders of Palestinian leaders... This is absolute terrorism in all senses of the word."

Hamas leaders are "Palestinian leaders"?

kill terrorists with collateral damage, and leftists hate you

refrain, and they hate you too

"Richard Clarke has charged that fighting terrorism was not the top priority with the Bush administration"

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/25osama.htm