assume, assert, enforce, @safe

[via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 4 August 2014 at 00:59:10 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
> On 8/3/14, 11:55 AM, Kagamin wrote:
>> On Saturday, 2 August 2014 at 17:36:46 UTC, David Bregman 
>> wrote:
>>> OK, I'm done. It's clear now that you're just being 
>>> intellectually
>>> dishonest in order to "win" what amounts to a trivial 
>>> argument. So
>>> much for professionalism.
>>
>> Haha, this time it's not as bad as it was in catch syntax 
>> discussion.
>> I even thought then they are blackmailed or something like 
>> that.
>
> It's really only this kind of stuff that has Walter and myself 
> worried.
> We understand spirits can get heated during a debate but the 
> problem
> with such comebacks that really hold no punches is they 
> instantly
> degrade the level of conversation, invite answers in kind, and 
> are very
> difficult to respond to in meaningful ways.
>
> From what I can tell after many years of having at this, 
> there's a sort
> of a heat death of debate in which questions are asked in a 
> definitive,
> magisterial manner (bearing an odd implied binding social 
> contract), and
> any response except the desired one is instantly dismissed as 
> simply
> stupid, intellectually dishonest, or, as it were, coming under 
> duress.
>
> I can totally relate to people who hold a conviction strong 
> enough to
> have difficulty acknowledging a contrary belief as even remotely
> reasonable, as I've fallen for that many times and I certainly 
> will in
> the future. Improving awareness of it only improves the 
> standing of
> debate for everyone involved.
>
> For my money, consider Walter's response:
>
>> What I see is Microsoft attempting to bring D's assert 
>> semantics into
>> C++. :)
>>
>> As I've mentioned before, there is inexorable pressure for 
>> this to
>> happen, and it will happen.
>
> I find it to the point, clear, and funny. Expanded it would go 
> like "I see more similarities than differences, and a definite 
> convergence dictated by market pressure." I find it highly 
> inappropriate to qualify that response as intellectually 
> dishonest even after discounting for a variety of factors, and 
> an apology would be in order.

It's easy to get a very different impression from his post: "I 
don't want to counter your arguments, so I just pick a random 
snippet from your post and make a funny mostly irrelevant 
comment, while ignoring everything else you wrote."

Now, I don't believe that this was Walter's intention, but in the 
end it had the same effect :-( This is very bad, because I feel 
this discussion is important, so it matters for both sides to 
understand where the others are coming from. We can't achieve 
this by evading questions and discussion. And it wasn't just this 
one post; if you look at the discussion, there are entire 
sub-threads where people were obviously just talking past each 
other. But for me it's not easy to see _why_ they were doing it, 
i.e. what exactly the misunderstanding is.