This is the mail archive of the guile@sources.redhat.com mailing list for the Guile project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: Will guile ever have (or care about having) users?


>>>>> "Jost" == Jost Boekemeier <jostobfe@linux.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE> writes:

    Jost> John Daschbach <d3h486@wd29688.emsl.pnl.gov> writes:
    >> was correct.  Neither the author or anyone on the list ever
    >> responded.


    Jost> From: Mail Delivery System
    Jost> <Mailer-Daemon@mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de> Subject: Warning:
....

To post such a message in the context of a news group as a response
demonstrates only that the author lacks both the logical skills
required to craft a response germane to the antecedent message in the
thread and the human discourse skills necessary to craft a message
that contains anything other than computer generated flotsam.  

Out of band duplicate messages sent simultaneously with newsgroup
messages are sent as a courtesy.  Their existence is irrelevant to the
discussion under consideration.  No reply was posted to the newsgroup,
the relevant forum, and I simply noted that fact.  I did post my
message from a machine which is behind a firewall and the mail rewrite
rules are not properly configured.  However, posting the message above
to the group demonstrates behavior orthogonal to mature newsgroup
discourse.  Presumably, or more precisely possibly, you responded in
reasoned prose to points in my lengthy post.  The correct forum for
this is the newsgroup, with possible simultaneous mail to me.  When I
posted the *fact* that no response to my post had appeared in the
newsgroup you spat out an incomplete message, the contents of which
demonstrate only that you failed to follow common list protocol and
courtesy.  Any mature discourse on this would have included a preamble
and appended the contents of your original message.  

A psychological study of the denizens of the guile community and the
project might be good PhD project.  There are intelligent people here,
but some have lost touch with the fact that guile is a language.  One
can define different metrics for measuring a language, but all must
include that it is used by people to communicate.  The guile community
seems to think that by working in isolation, ignoring any potential
users, and continuing to claim that *someday* guile will be the
perfect implementation of scheme, it will create a language which will
be widely used for a range of tasks.  This is in distinct contrast to
how most languages (human, mathematical) are developed, where syntax
is developed as needed and refined with time.  It would be difficult
to imagine that by ignoring at this stage some of the potential users
of guile and their troubles with the current design that you would
someday develop a language that these same users found usable.

-John



Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]