Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork

[James Blackwell]

> On Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 06:57:20PM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
>> Recently, I was at conference. Arch was a laughing stock because of the
>> furth discussion. I can tell you that its pretty embarassing when
>> respectable, knowledgeable people openly laugh at me, especially when
>> I happen to agree with them.
>

Miles Bader wrote:
> That's pretty childish behavior; to tell the truth it sounds more like a
> typical group-think response ("Yar! Perl r0x0rs, elisp sucks!") than a
> considered opinion.

Now that you mention it, that particular pair of shoes do seem to fit.

> So:  did they offer anything like a reason, or was it just the "laughing"?
>
> If the latter, what do you expect the reaction to be?

It was more like the latter, but when pressed, it was a case of "Tom
keeps reimplementing the wheel". autotools, glibc, now lisp....

Basically, the arguments had the same consistancy of the ones you'd hear
at your local chapter of the "anti-rms club". Few arguments about the
underlying thought, but many arguments against the practice of the
ideas. Since they were anti-rms style arguments, I used a typical
for-rms response. The guy is just too far ahead of his time, and thirty
years from now, people will point at him as the one that started doing
stuff right first.

The problem with many of Toms ideas aren't that they're wrong; in fact,
they're usually pretty much dead on. The problem with Tom's ideas are
that the solutions he tends to come up with are the nonobvious results
of a *lot* of thought. 

For example, one of the thing that typically entreated titters was the
concept of avoiding namespace collisions for archive names. The hackers
I spoke with hadn't caught on that this solves the problem of namespace
collions. Instead, with a smirk, they say that Tom is working undercover
for the keyboard industry, trying to get keyboards to wear out before
their time.

Sure, I can (and do) clear up these issues with people. But I end up
having the same five discussions with every person I meet.  But people
are so damn pragmatic. They don't seem to care about the problems that
we've solved; they care about the amount of effort they have to go
through.

-- 
James Blackwell          Try something fun: For the next 24 hours, give
Smile more!              each person you meet a compliment!

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