Closed gardens (was: [RFC] input.cpp: Remove use of strncat(3))

[Alejandro Colomar]

Hi!

On 12/10/22 09:55, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > If I were in charge, I veto these sorts of commits and fix the
> > > problems if/when they arise and have a cleaner history.
>
> "These sorts" is a broad and ill-defined classification.  We know how
> these work in practice; the guy in charge is an oracle.  Oracles are
> unreliable; this is why modern technology and medicine are based on the
> scientific method rather than getting stoned on hydrocarbon vapors in
> Pythia.[3]  The usual way around this to pronounce the oracle
> infallible, a method that suits chief executives just fine.  Larry has
> demonstrated, for example, that his opinions of groff, insofar as its
> documentation goes, are not informed ones.[4]  I see that there is
> recent literature on "minimizing guesswork with unreliable oracles".[5]
> I reckon bosses intuitively figured this out long ago; it's why they
> cultivate techniques for making their underlings shut up.  Savvy
> subordinates find ways to avoid interacting with them at all.[6]

[...]

> [3] Though it would be fair to point out that we moderns are more addled
>      by hydrocarbons than our Athenian forebears could have conceived.
> [4] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2022-07/msg00182.html
> [5] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8437509

Alternative link to [5], in arxiv:

<https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.01672>

rant {

I hate how intellectual collectives have their closed gardens with walls that 
are as high as the sky, where you need to be part of it to understand wtf(1) 
they're talking about.  That paper looks very interesting in its abstract, but I 
could only understand the first page and a few first paragraphs from the second 
page.  1.25 out of 25 is a pretty bad thing.  Weren't the origins of science 
those of philosophy, and probably the first implementation of open source?  The 
ancient philosophers wrote their books so that everyone would understand them, 
which took them to fame.  I still have a medicine book written by a Roman, which 
a kid could understand.  If I were to read a paper about medicine written 
today... good luck.

That reminds me also of a question at math.stackexchange which was about 
intersection of 2D planes in 4D.  The question was interesting, and there was an 
answer, which I hope was correct (but no clue, really; I was good at math, but 
didn't go as far to learn their jargon), so I wanted to write something that 
would be intuitive to anyone with minimal geometry notions:

<https://math.stackexchange.com/a/3797549>

I guess the other answer was written by someone with a PhD in Math, yet IMO my 
answer is superior...  And anyway, to someone so profficient at Math such as the 
other guy, my answer should be enough to be automatically translated in their 
minds to their (braindamaged) language.

}

Which reminds me that SYNOPSIS in the manual pages are good, but only to the 
ones who already know.  DESCRIPTIONs are something I shouldn't forget, for those 
that want something human- (and preferably child-)readable.


Cheers,

Alex

--
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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