of Sock Puppets and Straw Men

[Kris]

"David B. Held" <dheld at codelogicconsulting.com> wrote
>> Let me ask you: Did you make that post, David? Be honest about it.
>
> Ok, ok, I admit it!  I did all of it!!!  I just wanted to stir the pot, so 
> first, I wrote an anonymous post that I knew would bait people like you 
> into responding in exactly the way I predicted.  Then, to avert suspicion, 
> I tried it again, but this time, did it in a clumsy way that was easily 
> traceable!  You figured it all out!  You are so brilliant!  A sincere 
> question deserves a sincere answer.

I asked a simply question, and there's really no need to take this attitude. 
I will admit to being saddened by the levels that you claim to stoop to, 
though I guess I should not be surprised given what you've previously 
claimed:

1) that you deliberately subverted the integrity of the ng via your 
sock-puppet spoof
2) that you'd be more than willing to do so again

now you claim:

3) trolling against Tango is fair game for you (phangowant)
4) doing so with the intent to generate a flame fest was your goal ("baiting 
people ... exactly the way I predicted")

Bring on those moderators ...

Given those elements, one could be forgiven for concluding that your 
innacurate analogy regarding Boost and Tango was posted with similar 
malevolent intent. Too bad, since it made for an otherwise interesting read.


>> You're using the term 'criticism' as though we don't deal with it every 
>> single day. Perhaps you should hang out on IRC sometimes, and watch 
>> carefully how criticism is most often responded to ...
>
> Whether you like it or not, the NG is not some kind of static IRC channel. 
> What you say on IRC is not recorded and archived and made public in the 
> way this newsgroup is.  It may well be that people who talk to you on IRC 
> have a completely different experience than those who read this NG. 
> Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I'll let you decide.

Thanks. Well, given the claims you've made so far, I'd say the NG is an 
inappropriate place to conduct any kind of rational discourse. I mean, 
what's the point if people like you are more than willing to (as you've 
described) subvert and/or pervert the environment? I (perhaps ignorantly) 
thought it was a place for D enthusiasts to discuss related topics, rather 
than for those with some kind of twisted agenda. That's too bad.


>> Tango does not rest upon all of us being diplomats (at all, or all the 
>> time), so let's stop pretending it matters nearly as much as you've been 
>> trying to make out.
>
> Maybe Tango will always be a free product, and that would be great.  But 
> if you ever decide that you should get paid for your hard work (say, 
> through a dual-licensing scheme, which seems rather popular these days), 
> you might find that diplomacy hits the bottom line rather directly.

Yes, I'm aware how the business environment operates. And yes, Tango will 
always be a free product as far as I'm concerned. Why would it not be? Tango 
exists because we are D enthusiasts.


>> p.s. Just out of interest, have you written or designed a library on a 
>> scale similar to Tango?
>
> No, Kris, I haven't.  I'm not a brilliant programmer who only writes 
> amazing code like you are.  I doubt I could write a 10 line program 
> without introducing more than one bug per line.  My judgment and opinion 
> are absolutely worthless next to your shining intellect.  May your wisdom 
> bless the D community for all of its days!  I've only ever worked on toy 
> codebases of a few hundred lines, and never on something that was actually 
> used by other people.  Every night when I go to bed, I think to myself: 
> "If only I could one day be as great a h at X0r as Kris...that would be 
> swell!"  I feel stupid even replying to you, as if I have the right to 
> challenge a man who has so profoundly changed the face of D! I'm sorry, I 
> won't ever let it happen again.

There's really no need to utterly wig-out, is there? I asked a perfectly 
innocent, and what I thought to be reasonable, question. I mean, you might 
have had far more experience in that arena than all of Tango put together, 
and could thus be in a position to offer lots of solid advice on technical 
concerns too. I asked only because you seemed to be hinting in that 
direction.. However, I'll take your reply to be an affirmation in the 
negative sense.

Thank you for clarifying my original two questions regarding your posts over 
Tango.