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Re: master 1e3b0f2: Improve doc strings of project.el


From: Richard Stallman
Subject: Re: master 1e3b0f2: Improve doc strings of project.el
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2020 22:51:47 -0400

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  > > Yes, it is. Apparently you don't understand how cl-generic works.

  > Please drop the attitude.

+1.

Dmitry, it looks like you believe Eli was mistaken in what he said
about the return value of a certain function.

That could be so.  We are all human, as far as I know, so we all make
mistakes.  I have nothing to say about that function's return value;
I don't even know the function's name.

My point is that there are kind and harsh ways to say that someone
made a mistake.

"Apparently, you don't understand how this works" is a harsh way.  How
so?  Because it starts with evidence of a narrow mistake and generalizes
to accuse a much wider one.  That is exaggeration.

It is certainly possible to basically understand a topic and get one
detail wrong.  You can't justify the conclusion that a person doesn't
understand the topic, overall, just because of a mistake about a
detail.

What would be a kind way?  "With all due respect, I think you are mistaken
about how people use the return value of whatever-it-is."

I think that would have served the same purpose in the discussion of
this technical issue, while making it easy for others to agree with you
if you are right.

Would you please make an effort to change your habits that are harsh?






-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)





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