Is this a good thing?
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A couple of days ago a guy asked for assistance "getting over the beginner hump" in the General Discussions forum. He's a C# programmer; his request said, "I am looking for something that would walk a person through completion of a mildly complex program, starting from the design and planning phase and ending with a final release product." I offered to walk him through a re-write of our Plain English development system in C# - without cost or obligation. This offer was met, surprisingly, with strong resistance and nasty remarks from many; and - thankfully - with a few words of support from others. Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be. Is this a good thing?
The Grand Negus wrote:
A couple of days ago a guy asked for assistance "getting over the beginner hump" in the General Discussions forum. He's a C# programmer; his request said, "I am looking for something that would walk a person through completion of a mildly complex program, starting from the design and planning phase and ending with a final release product." I offered to walk him through a re-write of our Plain English development system in C# - without cost or obligation. This offer was met, surprisingly, with strong resistance and nasty remarks from many; and - thankfully - with a few words of support from others. Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be.
What happened to your original reply? The first paragraph was a useful response to the original question. The second paragraph where you brought 'Plain English' into it wasn't much help to the poster. But now there is only a reply with the 'Plain English' offer. The problem as I see it is, that every post you make seems to turn into a plug for 'Plain English'. If everybody at CP did that and tried to push their own agendas into every reply, then the site would soon lose its usefulness. I don't mind the odd post on the subject of your Plain English compiler as it is always nice to see someone trying to find possible better ways of software development. However your posts tend to come across as if Plain English is the one true way, which is patently not true. Maybe you need to get yourself a blog so you can spread the word.
Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
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Bradml wrote:
It is just that for some reason you think this Plain English compiler thing is the answer to all the worlds prayers.
It is true that we think natural language programming will play a big role in the future of computing. But in this particular case I offered to help the guy write a C# program. In what way is that inappropriate? You - after abusing my post - recommended a book full of PHP to the guy!
Bradml wrote:
Your intelligence and willingness would be accepted if you would just shut up.
Seems like a "Catch-22" to me. How can one demonstrate one's "intelligence and willingness" if one is "shut up" and not allowed to express himself?
Well I don't go off about how PHP is going to control my future computer drones. Admittedly your Plain English Compiler would be a nice step in the advance of programming, however computers do not speak english. So for this reason you would have to convert whatever the input is into machine code. Basically what you now have is Visual Basic. It is indeed true that if you were to shut up you would not be able to express yourself. I believe this would be your intelligent side.
Brad Australian -CAUTION- The previous statement may contain traces of PHP, and by reading this statement you negate the right to vote me down.
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The Grand Negus wrote:
A couple of days ago a guy asked for assistance "getting over the beginner hump" in the General Discussions forum. He's a C# programmer; his request said, "I am looking for something that would walk a person through completion of a mildly complex program, starting from the design and planning phase and ending with a final release product." I offered to walk him through a re-write of our Plain English development system in C# - without cost or obligation. This offer was met, surprisingly, with strong resistance and nasty remarks from many; and - thankfully - with a few words of support from others. Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be.
What happened to your original reply? The first paragraph was a useful response to the original question. The second paragraph where you brought 'Plain English' into it wasn't much help to the poster. But now there is only a reply with the 'Plain English' offer. The problem as I see it is, that every post you make seems to turn into a plug for 'Plain English'. If everybody at CP did that and tried to push their own agendas into every reply, then the site would soon lose its usefulness. I don't mind the odd post on the subject of your Plain English compiler as it is always nice to see someone trying to find possible better ways of software development. However your posts tend to come across as if Plain English is the one true way, which is patently not true. Maybe you need to get yourself a blog so you can spread the word.
Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
Michael P Butler wrote:
If everybody at CP did that and tried to push their own agendas into every reply, then the site would soon lose its usefulness.
On the contrary! What would result is the free exchange of ideas described by those who are passionate about them, leaving the rest to choose, for themselves, what to take and what to leave.
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Michael P Butler wrote:
If everybody at CP did that and tried to push their own agendas into every reply, then the site would soon lose its usefulness.
On the contrary! What would result is the free exchange of ideas described by those who are passionate about them, leaving the rest to choose, for themselves, what to take and what to leave.
The Grand Negus wrote:
On the contrary! What would result is the free exchange of ideas described by those who are passionate about them, leaving the rest to choose, for themselves, what to take and what to leave.
But not when the agenda being pushed doesn't really fit as an answer to the question. You always seem to use Plain English as a reply, even when it is clearly not an appropriate solution to the problem posed. We all have own preferred solutions to problems, but most of us only post what will actually help. I don't push my declarative programming / software factory beliefs unless I think the answer will truely benefit the poster. I'd still like to know why you edited your original reply to the General Discussion post you refer to. Your first paragraph was good advice and a valuable addition to the forum knowledge base.
Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
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A couple of days ago a guy asked for assistance "getting over the beginner hump" in the General Discussions forum. He's a C# programmer; his request said, "I am looking for something that would walk a person through completion of a mildly complex program, starting from the design and planning phase and ending with a final release product." I offered to walk him through a re-write of our Plain English development system in C# - without cost or obligation. This offer was met, surprisingly, with strong resistance and nasty remarks from many; and - thankfully - with a few words of support from others. Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be. Is this a good thing?
It is possible that a certain number of abuse clicks on a post will automatically delete it. I'm not too sure how it works.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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The Grand Negus wrote:
Is this a good thing?
Doesn't make any difference. You have been asked by the admins on several occasions to stop making these kind of posts but you still persist in doing it. Whether or not it's right or wrong makes no difference, it's their site and they get to make the rules. If you don't like them, go somewhere else. You don't have some innate right to come here and flaunt the rules.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.4 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
Taka Muraoka wrote:
You don't have some innate right to come here and flaunt the rules.
There are no rules on this site. I was not asked, when joining, to agree to anything. There are no stated conditions to which one must agree to become a member here - any user name and any email address, valid or not, will add one to the membership role. These are, as far as I can tell, free and public forums where anyone can post anything. And if you have any doubt, check the Soapbox. My posts are about programming, and issues that confront the world's community of programmers; much more appropriate here, I think, than many of the other, uncensored "contributions".
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The Grand Negus wrote:
On the contrary! What would result is the free exchange of ideas described by those who are passionate about them, leaving the rest to choose, for themselves, what to take and what to leave.
But not when the agenda being pushed doesn't really fit as an answer to the question. You always seem to use Plain English as a reply, even when it is clearly not an appropriate solution to the problem posed. We all have own preferred solutions to problems, but most of us only post what will actually help. I don't push my declarative programming / software factory beliefs unless I think the answer will truely benefit the poster. I'd still like to know why you edited your original reply to the General Discussion post you refer to. Your first paragraph was good advice and a valuable addition to the forum knowledge base.
Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
Michael P Butler wrote:
But not when the agenda being pushed doesn't really fit as an answer to the question.
In this particular case, at least, my offer did fit the question. I offered to help the guy write a significant C# program, which was his desire. And yet it was deemed "spam or abuse" and deleted.
Michael P Butler wrote:
I'd still like to know why you edited your original reply to the General Discussion post you refer to.
I didn't edit the original - it was deleted by the moderator. All that was left was a message that said, "Deleted as Spam or Abuse". Then, not knowing whether or not my attempt to override the deletion would survive, I spent minimum time on a revision. Since it was clear that the powers that be did not value my contribution (in either paragraph), I was loathe to cast my pearls before swine a second time and instead addressed myself directly to the original poster. Why should I make the effort to contribute ideas to a site that arbitrarily deletes them?
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A couple of days ago a guy asked for assistance "getting over the beginner hump" in the General Discussions forum. He's a C# programmer; his request said, "I am looking for something that would walk a person through completion of a mildly complex program, starting from the design and planning phase and ending with a final release product." I offered to walk him through a re-write of our Plain English development system in C# - without cost or obligation. This offer was met, surprisingly, with strong resistance and nasty remarks from many; and - thankfully - with a few words of support from others. Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be. Is this a good thing?
The Grand Negus wrote:
Is this a good thing?
Let's see what happens: I hereby make the same offer as the Grand Negus regarding my proprietary, commercial, closed source Interacx[^] system. (heck, Negus didn't even provide a clickety link, IIRC!) The point being, that if I had made the offer, I doubt very much the post would have been deleted. Therefore, it isn't the post itself that appears to be the problem, but rather a bias towards the history of the poster. (Of course, I'm sure there's a bias toward my posts as well, just a different bias. :) ) IMO, I think deleting your post was going too far. Ideally, this post should be deleted as well if the playing field is level. Any takers? Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh Smith -
What have you got against Friday?
Brad Australian -CAUTION- The previous statement may contain traces of PHP, and by reading this statement you negate the right to vote me down.
I just like Mondays better.
"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, `Who is destroying the world?' You are."
-Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand -
I just like Mondays better.
"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, `Who is destroying the world?' You are."
-Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand -
Well I don't go off about how PHP is going to control my future computer drones. Admittedly your Plain English Compiler would be a nice step in the advance of programming, however computers do not speak english. So for this reason you would have to convert whatever the input is into machine code. Basically what you now have is Visual Basic. It is indeed true that if you were to shut up you would not be able to express yourself. I believe this would be your intelligent side.
Brad Australian -CAUTION- The previous statement may contain traces of PHP, and by reading this statement you negate the right to vote me down.
Bradml wrote:
Well I don't go off about how PHP is going to control my future computer drones.
So? If you did it would be fine; perhaps you'd even be right. But how would we ever know if we simply abused and censored you every time you brought it up?
Bradml wrote:
Admittedly your Plain English Compiler would be a nice step in the advance of programming, however computers do not speak english.
Mine does. A subset, admittedly, but enough to conveniently write an efficient compiler, page editor, etc. And we have a very good plan to extend it. Just because a plane can't cross the Atlantic doesn't mean it can't fly.
Bradml wrote:
Basically what you now have is Visual Basic.
Not so. Our language is significantly simpler, more flexible, and much more natural than Visual Basic. The way we reference variables, for example, is entirely different. But stop a minute. If someone here offered to teach someone how to convert Visual Basic (rather than Plain English) to C#, would the offer be abused and deleted? I think not.
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Bradml wrote:
Well I don't go off about how PHP is going to control my future computer drones.
So? If you did it would be fine; perhaps you'd even be right. But how would we ever know if we simply abused and censored you every time you brought it up?
Bradml wrote:
Admittedly your Plain English Compiler would be a nice step in the advance of programming, however computers do not speak english.
Mine does. A subset, admittedly, but enough to conveniently write an efficient compiler, page editor, etc. And we have a very good plan to extend it. Just because a plane can't cross the Atlantic doesn't mean it can't fly.
Bradml wrote:
Basically what you now have is Visual Basic.
Not so. Our language is significantly simpler, more flexible, and much more natural than Visual Basic. The way we reference variables, for example, is entirely different. But stop a minute. If someone here offered to teach someone how to convert Visual Basic (rather than Plain English) to C#, would the offer be abused and deleted? I think not.
The Grand Negus wrote:
So? If you did it would be fine; perhaps you'd even be right. But how would we ever know if we simply abused and censored you every time you brought it up?
First of all, there is a reason for that disclaimer in my sig. People here are MS technology orientated. Deal with it.
The Grand Negus wrote:
Mine does. A subset, admittedly, but enough to conveniently write an efficient compiler, page editor, etc. And we have a very good plan to extend it. Just because a plane can't cross the Atlantic doesn't mean it can't fly.
And it doesn't mean it is the best way to fly either.
The Grand Negus wrote:
than Visual Basic. The way we reference variables, for example, is entirely different.
Hey good for you. Typing the word Dim isn't such a big task for me... but maybe you are missing fingers?
The Grand Negus wrote:
But stop a minute. If someone here offered to teach someone how to convert Visual Basic (rather than Plain English) to C#, would the offer be abused and deleted? I think not.
Well if someone went around constantly claiming Visual Basic was gods answer to I.T. then I would probably have hit the spam button (Well maybe just a 1.. but you get the point).
Brad Australian -CAUTION- The previous statement may contain traces of PHP, and by reading this statement you negate the right to vote me down.
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A couple of days ago a guy asked for assistance "getting over the beginner hump" in the General Discussions forum. He's a C# programmer; his request said, "I am looking for something that would walk a person through completion of a mildly complex program, starting from the design and planning phase and ending with a final release product." I offered to walk him through a re-write of our Plain English development system in C# - without cost or obligation. This offer was met, surprisingly, with strong resistance and nasty remarks from many; and - thankfully - with a few words of support from others. Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be. Is this a good thing?
This is most definitely a good thing! Your post was spam. It would be totally different if it came from a user who indicated they had success with such a product. Has anyone bothered to check to see if hpjchobbes (the person requesting to get over the hump) is a real user? He/she has two posts both from that same thread and he joined CP on the same day he posted. Certainly, this isn't conclusive evidence, but it sure is fishy. Go through the normal advertising routes just like everyone else -- that is, pay for it!!! You're not going to get any sympathy from me.
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The Grand Negus wrote:
Is this a good thing?
Let's see what happens: I hereby make the same offer as the Grand Negus regarding my proprietary, commercial, closed source Interacx[^] system. (heck, Negus didn't even provide a clickety link, IIRC!) The point being, that if I had made the offer, I doubt very much the post would have been deleted. Therefore, it isn't the post itself that appears to be the problem, but rather a bias towards the history of the poster. (Of course, I'm sure there's a bias toward my posts as well, just a different bias. :) ) IMO, I think deleting your post was going too far. Ideally, this post should be deleted as well if the playing field is level. Any takers? Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh SmithMarc Clifton wrote:
Therefore, it isn't the post itself that appears to be the problem, but rather a bias towards the history of the poster.
Of course. Nothing happens in a vacuum. When this guy first arrived, his posts were tolerated but after having been asked to stop several times, his posts are now just deleted without any questions asked. If you behaved in the same way, so would yours. Deleting a post might seem extreme but he was asked nicely to stop, which he chose to ignore, so I'm not surprised the admins just blow away any offending posts.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.4 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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A couple of days ago a guy asked for assistance "getting over the beginner hump" in the General Discussions forum. He's a C# programmer; his request said, "I am looking for something that would walk a person through completion of a mildly complex program, starting from the design and planning phase and ending with a final release product." I offered to walk him through a re-write of our Plain English development system in C# - without cost or obligation. This offer was met, surprisingly, with strong resistance and nasty remarks from many; and - thankfully - with a few words of support from others. Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be. Is this a good thing?
hey, don't lose heart. keep up the good work. :^)
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Marc Clifton wrote:
Therefore, it isn't the post itself that appears to be the problem, but rather a bias towards the history of the poster.
Of course. Nothing happens in a vacuum. When this guy first arrived, his posts were tolerated but after having been asked to stop several times, his posts are now just deleted without any questions asked. If you behaved in the same way, so would yours. Deleting a post might seem extreme but he was asked nicely to stop, which he chose to ignore, so I'm not surprised the admins just blow away any offending posts.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.4 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
No offense, but unless you are the admin making these decisions, I hardly think you're qualified to speak for them, their decision making processes, nor the communications that occurred. That said...
Taka Muraoka wrote:
his posts are now just deleted without any questions asked.
I disagree with that policy. The analogy would be, a person commits a petty crime and is put into prison for life. You can look at it two ways: Negus's post, based on his track record, is a weasely way of promoting his product. Or, Negus's post was a generous offer decently worded that stands on its own, regardless of his track record. But frankly, arguing this is pointless because I'm arguing what you think the admins think. I might as well contribute to that hypothetical thinking by saying that perhaps the admins simply told Negus, "any post you make mentioning English whatever will automatically be deleted, without question." Fair enough. As you say, they're the admins and run the site. I think that's the only factual statement one can make about the situation. Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh Smith -
The Grand Negus wrote:
So? If you did it would be fine; perhaps you'd even be right. But how would we ever know if we simply abused and censored you every time you brought it up?
First of all, there is a reason for that disclaimer in my sig. People here are MS technology orientated. Deal with it.
The Grand Negus wrote:
Mine does. A subset, admittedly, but enough to conveniently write an efficient compiler, page editor, etc. And we have a very good plan to extend it. Just because a plane can't cross the Atlantic doesn't mean it can't fly.
And it doesn't mean it is the best way to fly either.
The Grand Negus wrote:
than Visual Basic. The way we reference variables, for example, is entirely different.
Hey good for you. Typing the word Dim isn't such a big task for me... but maybe you are missing fingers?
The Grand Negus wrote:
But stop a minute. If someone here offered to teach someone how to convert Visual Basic (rather than Plain English) to C#, would the offer be abused and deleted? I think not.
Well if someone went around constantly claiming Visual Basic was gods answer to I.T. then I would probably have hit the spam button (Well maybe just a 1.. but you get the point).
Brad Australian -CAUTION- The previous statement may contain traces of PHP, and by reading this statement you negate the right to vote me down.
Bradml wrote:
Hey good for you. Typing the word Dim isn't such a big task for me... but maybe you are missing fingers?
Clearly, you speak about things you do not understand. Our variable naming and reference methods are not merely different in syntax from the norm, but represent an entirely different - and more natural - way of looking at the matter. But since you've decided to speak before investigating the thing you are speaking about, you wouldn't know that. See James 1:19 for some pertinent advice.
Bradml wrote:
Well if someone went around constantly claiming Visual Basic was gods answer to I.T. then I would probably have hit the spam button (Well maybe just a 1.. but you get the point).
Yes, I do get the point. You are not interested in improving the quality of posts on this site, nor are you interested in increasing the diversity of opinions presented; you're simply interested in expressing your own feelings about things, however ill-conceived and destructive they may be.
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Bradml wrote:
Hey good for you. Typing the word Dim isn't such a big task for me... but maybe you are missing fingers?
Clearly, you speak about things you do not understand. Our variable naming and reference methods are not merely different in syntax from the norm, but represent an entirely different - and more natural - way of looking at the matter. But since you've decided to speak before investigating the thing you are speaking about, you wouldn't know that. See James 1:19 for some pertinent advice.
Bradml wrote:
Well if someone went around constantly claiming Visual Basic was gods answer to I.T. then I would probably have hit the spam button (Well maybe just a 1.. but you get the point).
Yes, I do get the point. You are not interested in improving the quality of posts on this site, nor are you interested in increasing the diversity of opinions presented; you're simply interested in expressing your own feelings about things, however ill-conceived and destructive they may be.
Indeed I do not know much about your Plain English Compiler. But I do know I am sick of hearing about it.
The Grand Negus wrote:
You are not interested in improving the quality of posts on this site, nor are you interested in increasing the diversity of opinions presented; you're simply interested in expressing your own feelings about things, however ill-conceived and destructive they may be.
Oh but don't you understand. I have every interest in the posts on this site being both diverse and quality. This is why I appose your posts. You have NO diversity in your statements and always express the fact that you feel that your creation is the best thing for all of us. I am not saying that your compiler is not useful, but how would you like it if I forced PHP on you with everything I posted? It would grow tiresome wouldn't it?
Brad Australian -CAUTION- The previous statement may contain traces of PHP, and by reading this statement you negate the right to vote me down.
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No offense, but unless you are the admin making these decisions, I hardly think you're qualified to speak for them, their decision making processes, nor the communications that occurred. That said...
Taka Muraoka wrote:
his posts are now just deleted without any questions asked.
I disagree with that policy. The analogy would be, a person commits a petty crime and is put into prison for life. You can look at it two ways: Negus's post, based on his track record, is a weasely way of promoting his product. Or, Negus's post was a generous offer decently worded that stands on its own, regardless of his track record. But frankly, arguing this is pointless because I'm arguing what you think the admins think. I might as well contribute to that hypothetical thinking by saying that perhaps the admins simply told Negus, "any post you make mentioning English whatever will automatically be deleted, without question." Fair enough. As you say, they're the admins and run the site. I think that's the only factual statement one can make about the situation. Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh SmithMarc Clifton wrote:
No offense, but unless you are the admin making these decisions, I hardly think you're qualified to speak for them, their decision making processes, nor the communications that occurred.
If you want to go down that road, is anyone qualified to say what they *think* someone else's motivations are, what they're thinking or feeling? :rolleyes: I said that "I'm not surprised the admins just blow away any offending posts" which is just my opinion on what they're doing.
Marc Clifton wrote:
I might as well contribute to that hypothetical thinking by saying that perhaps the admins simply told Negus, "any post you make mentioning English whatever will automatically be deleted, without question."
Chris warned him publicly at least once in the forums to stop pushing his product, this is not speculation on my part. So he was warned (fact), he ignored it (also fact), and so it's not hard to come to the same conclusion that I did. Honestly, if you were running public forums and someone insisted on doing something despite you asking them on several occasions to stop, what would you do?
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.4 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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Bradml wrote:
It is just that for some reason you think this Plain English compiler thing is the answer to all the worlds prayers.
It is true that we think natural language programming will play a big role in the future of computing. But in this particular case I offered to help the guy write a C# program. In what way is that inappropriate? You - after abusing my post - recommended a book full of PHP to the guy!
Bradml wrote:
Your intelligence and willingness would be accepted if you would just shut up.
Seems like a "Catch-22" to me. How can one demonstrate one's "intelligence and willingness" if one is "shut up" and not allowed to express himself?
The Grand Negus wrote:
How can one demonstrate one's "intelligence and willingness" if one is "shut up" and not allowed to express himself?
I'm sure there's a Chinese proverb or two about "silence being the highest form of wisdom" or something like that. ;P All kidding aside, I was just thinking, why not write some articles on natural language programming? Personally, I think it would be a fascinating subject. Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh Smith