From pjp@dinkumware.com Mon Sep 24 04:31:13 EDT 2001 Article: 59336 of comp.std.c Path: newshog.newsread.com!bad-news.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!newsfeed.mathworks.com!portc03.blue.aol.com!feed1.newsreader.com!feed2.newsreader.com!uunet!ash.uu.net!spool0900.news.uu.net!reader0901.news.uu.net!not-for-mail From: "P.J. Plauger" Newsgroups: comp.std.c References: <8fbd32b9.0109060114.22ba5c3d@posting.google.com> <9nvbmq$puv$1@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca> <3ba39352$0$22751$724ebb72@reader2.ash.ops.us.uu.net> <9o1vd8$d0g$1@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca> <3ba4f258$0$24469$4c41069e@reader1.ash.ops.us.uu.net> <9o4o23$fjn$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> Subject: Re: C99 and unicode Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 08:43:05 -0400 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Lines: 80 Message-ID: <3ba5efda$0$29744$4c41069e@reader1.ash.ops.us.uu.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.102.52.181 X-Trace: 1000730586 reader1.ash.ops.us.uu.net 29744 63.102.52.181 Xref: bad-news.newsread.com comp.std.c:59336 "Nick Maclaren" wrote in message news:9o4o23$fjn$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk... > |> Thanks for clarifing that you are, indeed, an asshole. > > I do so admire your ability to provide convincing evidence for your > points, and to do it in such a polite way. Coming from you, that's a compliment indeed. I was, of course, being intentionally terse, having outlined my stand in my original posting. > Several National Bodies pointed out officially that this area of > C90 was a fiasco in the making, but their (often expert) comments > were not given the consideration that they should have been. Ross > Ridge's description of the process may have been inaccurate and his > views somewhat offensively put, but they are not wholly without > foundation. So you are agreeing with him that members of the C standards committee (and others) are brain dead? That's what I was chiding him for. You can espouse whatever opinion you like about the technical content of resulting standards. Others can dispute those opinions, citing facts and rational arguments. That's how this forum works, at its best, and that's how people expand their understanding -- at least if they're open to the possibility. It has been well established over the past couple of millennia, however, that you do *not* make derogatory remarks about the people presenting the ideas. At best you're descending to ad hominem arguments, which are demonstrably weak and irrational. At worst you're showing your own immaturity, short sightedness, and inability to learn. And you're being hurtful. As to the specific attacks on people: I have worked on several standards committees practically nonstop for over two decades. I find the attendees to be among the best and the brightest in the programming community. Moreover, I've lost count of the number of times someone else's ill- considered viewpoint has eventually made sense to me and broadened my own horizons in delightfully surprising ways. If you dismiss as brain dead those who haven't learned to share your own narrow world view, then you're cauterizing your own learning centers. And you're doing a terrible disservice to people whose only real compensation for years of hard work is an occasional thank you. You are, in short, being an asshole, in the most precise sense of that term. As to the technical subject matter: I have been a student, and would-be enabler, of internationalization technology for about 20 years now. In that time, I have met experts on elephant's trunks, on elephant's front feet, on elephant's bellies, on elephant's butts, and indeed on elephant's droppings. From rhinologists to scatologists, all share the comfortable belief that people outside their specialty will know instinctively how to make use of their little perspective on the entire, very large, animal. I'm persomally more comfortable with that brand of parochialism than I am with the smaller group who see two or three neighboring parts and consider themselves world-class elephantologists. (My personal goal in all this is to understand the beast well enough to make a good saddle for him, so that my customers may ride him to where they want to go.) I don't like a lot of stuff that was put into Standard C and Standard C++ in the name of internationalization. I saw its weaknesses at the time, as did a few others. Sometimes we spoke up, sometimes we held our silence. I know of nothing insurmountably detrimental that ended up in either standard, however. And I know there were numerous good-faith efforts to meet the needs of conflicting constituencies in determining what actually went into each standard. It is much easier to criticize a result if you're not responsible for making the compromises. The ignorance of internationalization issues displayed on these newsgroups is broad and deep. But many of the discussions are helpful, because they bridge the gaps between parochial experts, and because they educate the programmers in the trenches a little more. Ignorance is curable, with education, stupidity is not. There's a name for people who are so stupid they think everyone else is stupid instead, but I won't repeat it again. At least not here and now. P.J. Plauger Dinkumware, Ltd. http://www.dinkumware.com