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 re-write of our Plain English development system in C#
Your suggestion fails to meet the needs of the original poster asking for assistance. He needs a practical application from the real world as an example. A development environment or compiler, regardless of the target language, doesn't strike me as a good place to start.
The Grand Negus wrote:
without cost or obligation
I checked your website. The only way to obtain significant information on your product is to buy it. Your manifesto states that your 'royalty fees are reasonable'. A purchase is not 'without cost'. Royalty fees imply a contract, which is an obligation. Even your offer of 'free evaluation copies' fails to meet this criteria, since you restrict those to requestors that meet your approval, which is another form of contract.
The Grand Negus wrote:
Is this a good thing?
Yes it is. You consistently violate the standard of behavior here at Code Project. Contrary to what you've posted elsewhere in this thread, that standard is posted on the Lounge main page: do not post ads. Practically every response you make that I have ever seen can easily be construed as an advertisement for your "Plain English" product. This meets the definition of spam.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
No, they are prosecuted each time the commit the same crime again. The refsual to look at what users require is what gets most people - like not admitting nested conditionals exist. "The customer is always right" but according to Osmiwhatever, only his views count.
Trollslayer wrote:
No, they are prosecuted each time the commit the same crime again.
I didn't feel that his post was committing the same crime again. 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 -
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?
I would say this. It's probably time to quit crying wolf on stuff. Many at this site seem to have a very uptight presence here. Don't rock their boat or you get on their list permanently. You've been asked by many to quit plugging your stuff in every reply. You still do and frankly I don't see that changing and those crying for you to quit appear to be chipping their teeth. So my view is that you are what you are. CP is what it is. If you are going to be here then take the lumps, good and bad and don't cry for the referee's to make some ruling every time you feel you've been fouled. It's a public place and we actually don't have referee's. We have a commissioner of sport and that's about it. So do your thing, CP will do it's thing. But *would* everybody shut up and quit bitching about who is doing what? Freak! People get lives or something.
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But this would most likely lead to a language war and create factions in the community. IT is better if you make a suggestion based solely on the post. If someone asks me what Server Side Language is the best I will jump irhgt in there for PHP, but if they ask for the best way to enhance there coding practices then I'm not going to be saying "Um go to PHP.net and port the PHP compiler into C# because then you will know how to structure your applications".
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:
if they ask for the best way to enhance there coding practices then I'm not going to be saying "Um go to PHP.net and port the PHP compiler into C# because then you will know how to structure your applications".
No, because that would be very difficult to do without assistance. But that is not at all what I offered. I didn't say, "Go here and take on a huge, do-it-yourself project"; I said, "Let me help you - at my own expense - to understand a wide variety of programming topics in a very concrete way with all the personalized help you require, using the language of your choice".
Bradml wrote:
IT is better if you make a suggestion based solely on the post.
Which is exactly what I did. He 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" and I offered him exactly that. Why, then, was my post is deleted as "spam or abuse"? (Don't answer; the question is rhetorical.)
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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?
If there is one thing I have learned, its that some of the people here are the most hypocritical people I have ever met. Not everyone, alot of them are.
Matt Newman
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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 SmithMarc Clifton wrote:
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.
But I did write a definitive article on natural language programming: it's the reference manual that comes with our product, together with the source code for a significant working example, and which was offered here, to any member, for free, for eight consecutive months. The offer also included personalized answers to any and all questions submitted by interested persons, and an opportunity to further the research in various ways (see www.osmosian.com/manifesto.pdf for details). I also posted, in these very forums, hundreds of answers to questions - sincere and otherwise - describing the technology, its unique characteristics, its strengths and weaknesses, and our vision for future development. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars we spent advertising on this site. You might (rightly) think it's a fascinating subject, Mark, but clearly the people who frequent these forums, and the powers that be, do not. The three articles we posted here on the subject, for example, were promptly deleted.
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Bradml wrote:
if they ask for the best way to enhance there coding practices then I'm not going to be saying "Um go to PHP.net and port the PHP compiler into C# because then you will know how to structure your applications".
No, because that would be very difficult to do without assistance. But that is not at all what I offered. I didn't say, "Go here and take on a huge, do-it-yourself project"; I said, "Let me help you - at my own expense - to understand a wide variety of programming topics in a very concrete way with all the personalized help you require, using the language of your choice".
Bradml wrote:
IT is better if you make a suggestion based solely on the post.
Which is exactly what I did. He 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" and I offered him exactly that. Why, then, was my post is deleted as "spam or abuse"? (Don't answer; the question is rhetorical.)
Ok I'm tired of arguing now. I'm going to clarify my position: I don't think it is appropriate for you to plug every chance you get. Regardless of the situation you find a way to fit your product into it. I am not saying don't mention your Plain English Compiler at all, I am saying that I don't want to hear about it being applied in every different situation (Especially when technically this site is focused more towards Microsoft Technologies). I do think you are a very intelligent person with a lot to contribute to the community. My "Childish Snipes" were just the tired talking. Your ideas are very interesting and I would definitely read an article on the topic of Plain English compilation. I think that Chris has the right to delete what he deems as something he does not want on his site. He has handled the whole Plain English compiler plugging in a very decent way. And with that, G'Night
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, they are prosecuted each time the commit the same crime again. The refsual to look at what users require is what gets most people - like not admitting nested conditionals exist. "The customer is always right" but according to Osmiwhatever, only his views count.
Trollslayer wrote:
like not admitting nested conditionals exist
I freely and publicly admit that "nested conditionals exist" and assert that I have never said otherwise. It is wrong for you to put your words into my mouth. We do, however, argue that they are unnecessary and offer a very significant program - written conveniently and efficiently without them - as a convincing proof.
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Jerry Hammond wrote:
this is a private site and if those who are the host, or act as the host's agent find someone annoying enough to delete all a poster's threads out of hand then the time has come for that poster to realize they are unwelcome and move on.
But only two of my posts - out of hundreds - have been deleted by the CodeProject people. The message communicated to me by Maunder and the "lesser" moderators is mixed. See here[^] for a more complete summary.
Would you not agree that, bottom line, you possess no right to post here and the owner has every right to remove, delete, edit, or otherwise alter any post or content within these 'forums'?
Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.- Vernor Vinge
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No, they are prosecuted each time the commit the same crime again. The refsual to look at what users require is what gets most people - like not admitting nested conditionals exist. "The customer is always right" but according to Osmiwhatever, only his views count.
Trollslayer wrote:
"The customer is always right" but according to Osmiwhatever, only his views count.
Wrong twice. The customer is not always right; many customers want alcohol so they can binge drink - an end that you, yourself, deplore. And wrong to assert that I think only my views count. Surely, I'm not God and I don't know everything there is to know. But I do believe - strongly - in my views, and I back them up, in this case, with a significant and operational program that is offered with source code to any and all for study, modification, extension, and/or imitation as they see fit.
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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:
Ideally, this post should be deleted as well if the playing field is level.
I think this is what Jeremy was "preaching" about before he left. I do think that Mr. Grand is a victim of his approach, but I have already had that discussion with him.
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. - Jim Elliot Me blog, You read
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The Grand Negus wrote:
a re-write of our Plain English development system in C#
Your suggestion fails to meet the needs of the original poster asking for assistance. He needs a practical application from the real world as an example. A development environment or compiler, regardless of the target language, doesn't strike me as a good place to start.
The Grand Negus wrote:
without cost or obligation
I checked your website. The only way to obtain significant information on your product is to buy it. Your manifesto states that your 'royalty fees are reasonable'. A purchase is not 'without cost'. Royalty fees imply a contract, which is an obligation. Even your offer of 'free evaluation copies' fails to meet this criteria, since you restrict those to requestors that meet your approval, which is another form of contract.
The Grand Negus wrote:
Is this a good thing?
Yes it is. You consistently violate the standard of behavior here at Code Project. Contrary to what you've posted elsewhere in this thread, that standard is posted on the Lounge main page: do not post ads. Practically every response you make that I have ever seen can easily be construed as an advertisement for your "Plain English" product. This meets the definition of spam.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
A development environment or compiler, regardless of the target language, doesn't strike me as a good place to start.
Why not? He's said he's already "started" and is looking for a greater challenge. The project I propose begins with the development of an alternate interface and ends with the development of a compiler; in between are basic and useful applications like and editor, a dumper, and a page-layout facility.
Gary R. Wheeler wrote:
The only way to obtain significant information on your product is to buy it.
Not so. Send me an email with a reasonable request and see what happens.
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I would say this. It's probably time to quit crying wolf on stuff. Many at this site seem to have a very uptight presence here. Don't rock their boat or you get on their list permanently. You've been asked by many to quit plugging your stuff in every reply. You still do and frankly I don't see that changing and those crying for you to quit appear to be chipping their teeth. So my view is that you are what you are. CP is what it is. If you are going to be here then take the lumps, good and bad and don't cry for the referee's to make some ruling every time you feel you've been fouled. It's a public place and we actually don't have referee's. We have a commissioner of sport and that's about it. So do your thing, CP will do it's thing. But *would* everybody shut up and quit bitching about who is doing what? Freak! People get lives or something.
code-frog wrote:
If you are going to be here then take the lumps, good and bad and don't cry for the referee's to make some ruling every time you feel you've been fouled.
Agreed. As you well know, I've taken many lumps and have responded directly and civily to the "lumper" in every case. The only time I've "cried for the referee" is when a post got deleted because that gives an unfair advantage to the "lumpers" and makes the free exchange of ideas impossible.
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Marc Clifton wrote:
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.
But I did write a definitive article on natural language programming: it's the reference manual that comes with our product, together with the source code for a significant working example, and which was offered here, to any member, for free, for eight consecutive months. The offer also included personalized answers to any and all questions submitted by interested persons, and an opportunity to further the research in various ways (see www.osmosian.com/manifesto.pdf for details). I also posted, in these very forums, hundreds of answers to questions - sincere and otherwise - describing the technology, its unique characteristics, its strengths and weaknesses, and our vision for future development. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars we spent advertising on this site. You might (rightly) think it's a fascinating subject, Mark, but clearly the people who frequent these forums, and the powers that be, do not. The three articles we posted here on the subject, for example, were promptly deleted.
Ah. One thing this site has taught me more than just about any other life experience, is not to hold a grudge. It's also really hammered home "you can't control things you're not in charge of". Frankly, I would suggest you continue to develop your ideas and promote your product and just let CP go. 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 -
Would you not agree that, bottom line, you possess no right to post here and the owner has every right to remove, delete, edit, or otherwise alter any post or content within these 'forums'?
Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.- Vernor Vinge
Jerry Hammond wrote:
Would you not agree that, bottom line, you possess no right to post here and the owner has every right to remove, delete, edit, or otherwise alter any post or content within these 'forums'?
Not quite. The "right to post" is granted, by the owner, when a person becomes a member. This right has been granted to me on numerious occasions, and I was not asked, as a condition of membership, to agree to any restrictions whatsoever. The owner does, however, have the "right to remove and delete posts" deemed inappropriate (but see below). The owner does not, in my opinion, have the "right to edit or otherwise alter any post or content" because that, in effect, may put words in the poster's mouth that are not an accurate representation of the poster's views. You, for example, wouldn't want Maunder adding some curse-words or a meaning-altering "not" to the sentence above, would you? Which brings us to the issue of responsibility. Rights imply responsibilities and the owner of a site, therefore, must exercise his rights with propriety and equity; in other words, he does not ethically have the right to remove or delete posts arbitrarily or unfairly or inconsistently; he may have the means, the opportunity, and the inclination to do so, but he does not have the right to do so. The site may be owned by Maunder; but Maunder is owned by God.
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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:
Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be.
I did not do anything with that message, either report or comment. But perhaps I could explain a bit so that you understand. Have you ever heard of the phrase "burning your bridges"? That is what you have done in the past. Your offer was genuine, and would not have been voted down, if it had not been for your history of posts here. We often tell stories to children to explain why not to do these things. Like the boy crying wolf as a joke, no one would believe him when he was in genuine trouble. So then, because of your long history of spamming the forums with advertisements of your software, insulting people by telling them you know better than they, or that they are all going the wrong direction and you and only you know the right way, very few would be willing to forgive you and believe you are genuine. They see a salesman shoving his foot in a door as it is closing to force his way in. They see rudeness. They see spam. Because of past actions, it makes it difficult for anyone to believe you are interested in helping someone, because you have never shown that kind of effort before. You have only shown interest in helping IF and ONLY IF it benefits you and your advertising campaign for the Osmosian Order. A true offer to help is in the interest of the person being helped, not only the person teaching. True teaching is about the student, not the instructor.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Ah. One thing this site has taught me more than just about any other life experience, is not to hold a grudge. It's also really hammered home "you can't control things you're not in charge of". Frankly, I would suggest you continue to develop your ideas and promote your product and just let CP go. 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:
One thing this site has taught me more than just about any other life experience, is not to hold a grudge. It's also really hammered home "you can't control things you're not in charge of". Frankly, I would suggest you continue to develop your ideas and promote your product and just let CP go.
Thanks. And as I've said before, I think you are a fair and reasonable man. But it's not really a "grudge" that we're talking about here - though I can see how it might sound that way. It's more that I don't see any significant encouragement to justify the effort necessary to take steps in the direction you suggested earlier. If and when a light at the end of the tunnel appears, however, I would sincerely hope that I wouldn't let bygones interfere with movement toward that light. Regarding the most recent suggestion above, however, I need to remind you that what you see on these forums is not the whole story. This very thread, for example, generated a request from a person who does not appear on the thread, and the same thing happened just yesterday; it is these people we hope to reach through CodeProject. So, when should the Apostle Paul abandon the Jews and restrict himself entirely to a Gentile ministry? And at what point should Martin Luther make his less-than-graceful exit from the Roman Catholic church? How often should Gene Amdahl go back to IBM and try to convince them he's right, before he sets out on his own? Should Steve Jobs stay at Apple, leave, come back, or leave again? We know that we will most likely, in the end, part company with CodeProject altogether. But now? When so many of the members haven't yet expressed an opinion either way? Well, perhaps...
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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?
First of all cheer up and I wish you an Happy New Year. I think the problem is that you did enough damage to yourself taking the wrong approach to spread your product. That is going to haunt you forever. Now you have lot of hard work to do to improve your image. In my opinion if you start posting articles about the details of your PEC, NLP, and show users how to write apps in it. In what way it is better and what are it limitations. People may start appreciating you. Otherwise I see no reason why you need to be appreciated.
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -Brian Kernighan
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Jerry Hammond wrote:
Would you not agree that, bottom line, you possess no right to post here and the owner has every right to remove, delete, edit, or otherwise alter any post or content within these 'forums'?
Not quite. The "right to post" is granted, by the owner, when a person becomes a member. This right has been granted to me on numerious occasions, and I was not asked, as a condition of membership, to agree to any restrictions whatsoever. The owner does, however, have the "right to remove and delete posts" deemed inappropriate (but see below). The owner does not, in my opinion, have the "right to edit or otherwise alter any post or content" because that, in effect, may put words in the poster's mouth that are not an accurate representation of the poster's views. You, for example, wouldn't want Maunder adding some curse-words or a meaning-altering "not" to the sentence above, would you? Which brings us to the issue of responsibility. Rights imply responsibilities and the owner of a site, therefore, must exercise his rights with propriety and equity; in other words, he does not ethically have the right to remove or delete posts arbitrarily or unfairly or inconsistently; he may have the means, the opportunity, and the inclination to do so, but he does not have the right to do so. The site may be owned by Maunder; but Maunder is owned by God.
The Grand Negus wrote:
The owner does not, in my opinion, have the "right to edit or otherwise alter any post or content" because that, in effect, may put words in the poster's mouth that are not an accurate representation of the poster's views. You, for example, wouldn't want Maunder adding some curse-words or a meaning-altering "not" to the sentence above, would you?
That is when you would exercise "your right to leave".
The Grand Negus wrote:
Which brings us to the issue of responsibility. Rights imply responsibilities and the owner of a site, therefore, must exercise his rights with propriety and equity; in other words, he does not ethically have the right to remove or delete posts arbitrarily or unfairly or inconsistently; he may have the means, the opportunity, and the inclination to do so, but he does not have the right to do so. The site may be owned by Maunder; but Maunder is owned by God.
Any time a person interjects God in a discussion about an Internet forum and its usage I have to wonder about that person's priorities about life and their perspective.
Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.- Vernor Vinge
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The Grand Negus wrote:
Fine; everyone has an opinion. But then the offer was "reported as spam or abuse" and deleted by the powers that be.
I did not do anything with that message, either report or comment. But perhaps I could explain a bit so that you understand. Have you ever heard of the phrase "burning your bridges"? That is what you have done in the past. Your offer was genuine, and would not have been voted down, if it had not been for your history of posts here. We often tell stories to children to explain why not to do these things. Like the boy crying wolf as a joke, no one would believe him when he was in genuine trouble. So then, because of your long history of spamming the forums with advertisements of your software, insulting people by telling them you know better than they, or that they are all going the wrong direction and you and only you know the right way, very few would be willing to forgive you and believe you are genuine. They see a salesman shoving his foot in a door as it is closing to force his way in. They see rudeness. They see spam. Because of past actions, it makes it difficult for anyone to believe you are interested in helping someone, because you have never shown that kind of effort before. You have only shown interest in helping IF and ONLY IF it benefits you and your advertising campaign for the Osmosian Order. A true offer to help is in the interest of the person being helped, not only the person teaching. True teaching is about the student, not the instructor.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
True teaching is about the student, not the instructor.
True. But I can't teach, say, horseback riding, because I don't know how to do it myself. So I offer to teach what I know best, using the product I know best, which is based on research to which I have devoted a great deal of time, energy, and money. So when I say, "Come, follow me. Join the Osmosian Order of Plain English Programmers!" what I'm saying is, "Come. Let me teach you everything I know about programming - and some auxiliary things along the way. You can take what you want and disregard the rest." In other words, I am what I am and I offer what I have. Why should that occasion abuse from anyone? Those who are not interested can simply ignore my posts - the name, "Grand Negus" is clearly displayed on the header line and no one is forced to read those entries.