Bug#210879: Reopen: revise odd language in 'constitution.txt' -- "K Developers" ... "not integers"
reopen 210879 !
thanks
<Cough>
The body of A. Suffield is too spicy to chew in anything but tiny pieces:
> To hell with this,
Hey, you're stealing my best Heaven and Hell material. I signed off last time
saying controversy was a kind of Heaven on Earth, because even though it was
50% (or more) wasteful, it wasn't as wasteful as throwing out the baby with the
bathwater the way autocrats do. Earlier I'd invented an order-mad math editor
of a dictionary who says "to hell with history", because history messes up his
"perfect" system.
Then you go and behave like this imaginary ahistorical math editor, even using
the phrase "to hell with". My post disagrees with yours. To hell with
idiotic posts that disagree with yours. To hell to hell to hell we go...
> it's way past ridiculous.
So? The bug is a ridiculous typo. My report was tongue in cheek. The replies
to date have pretty much of the "say have you noticed how much dumber you are
than us" variety, and have humor whether they're right or wrong, and so it
goes. But humor often contains truth, so ridiculous should only be a
pejorative for those who hate to let that kind of truth be heard.
And the most purely insulting and ridiculous posts are your own! It takes
chutzpah, writing to derail a thread, then blaming the victim for your deed,
like the man who kills his parents, then begs for clemency because he's an
orphan.
> The bug submitter is clearly
"Clearly" for you! I used to know a guy who said "obviously" all the time the
same way -- and he was just as crazy about "winning" arguments and "being
right" -- backstage though he was depressed, and dissing people gave the poor
guy a small buzz. Other snobs say "little", and so on. Oy. Then there's the
bad books that'll give a proof the author knows so well he forgets a couple
steps, and writes "clearly". The readers are stuck, and fear they must be
dumb, then ask some mean spirited sort what's up with the proof, who seizes the
moment and tells them, yes they are dumb, and the bad proof is "clear". It's
like a protection racket of obscurantism -- you student chumps pretend we
experts are not obscure, and we won't insult you; play along, and we'll even
cut you in.
> more interested in writing lengthly dissertations
Lengthy because the one-liner "I'm your host" approach doesn't work! Instead
of learning and agreement, we get endless contradictions and cheap shots, which
sets a horrible example.
The roots of obscurity aren't to be summed up in one line. And this bug and
this thread is so about obscurity. Why are people so proud of difficulty?
What do they profit?
> on nothing in particular
Something! In. Particular.
The unsteady basis of your insults is that everyone should share your own
inflexible vocabulary. Some do, and maybe they cheer you on, like "Go
Professor". Your vocabulary is "standard" -- but's only "A" standard, not
"THE" standard. The nice thing about standards is that there's so many to
choose from. The math is in the logic, not the wording.
What breaks my hump here is that everyone here knows that COLD, and agrees with
that, but that you still think it's not too precious to mention that you're the
man with the right definition of term XYZ. We all agree what integers and
whole numbers and naturals are, or can make an agreement as we like, and we all
agree that it's arbitrary too, but you insist some don't while you bear the
standard. I guess people have been doing that for centuries at least... here's
a Pascal quote, from 'Of the Geometrical Spirit':
"Hence it appears that definitions are very arbitrary, and that they are
never subject to contradiction; for nothing is more permissible than to give to
a thing which has been clearly designated, whatever name we choose. It is only
necessary to take care not to abuse the liberty that we possess of imposing
names, by giving the same to two different things.
"Not that this may not be permissible, provided we do not confound the
consequences, and do not extend them from the one to the other.
"But if we fall into this error, we can oppose to it a sure and infallible
remedy: that of mentally substituting the definition in the place of the thing
defined, and of having the definition always so present, that every time we
speak, for example, of an even number, we mean precisely that which is
divisible into two equal parts, and that these two things should be in such a
degree joined and inseparable in thought, that as soon as the discourse
expresses the one, the mind attaches it immediately to the other. For
geometricians, and all those who proceed methodically, only impose names on
things to abbreviate discourse, and not to diminish or change the idea of the
things of which they are discoursing. And they pretend that the mind always
supplies the full definition to the concise terms, which they only employ to
avoid the confusion occasioned by the multitude of words.
"Nothing more promptly and more effectually removes the captious cavils of
sophists than this method, which it is necessary to have always present, and
which alone suffices to banish all kinds of difficulties and equivocations."
> than in making his case,
"His" case! There it is again, like an argument is a personal attribute! If I
don't exist does the argument cease to exist? If nobody reports a bug, does it
magically not exist? Is this a Zen Monastery?
It's not "my" case, it's a bug. It either exists or it doesn't, but that's
nothing on me. Or anybody else for that matter. It's a thing, an object, it's
there, it's impersonal, you can't take it away, (as in it can't be made never
to have existed at all) and you can't give it, (lets assume nobody deliberately
writes bugs).
Oh but some helpful soul may argue you didn't mean that, you only had the one
meaning of "his" as in bug report "#210879" merely that and nothing more,
nothing personal. Pull the other one. That's like telling somebody they look
terrible, then later saying in that instance the particular definition of
'terrible' means 'good'. When it suits 'em a word has one meaning, or perhaps
more, if convenient.
And "case" is hoity toity too.
> since he has done the former [ rambled on about nothing -ac ]
Say it some more. Repetition means it's probably true.
> several times but never responded to any serious
What's this "any serious"? There haven't been any. You can't mean your own
posts. Who's then? Answer: Everyone's of course. I'm just too dumb to see
it, naturally. Well OK then.
> rebuttals of his
What rebuttals? Guys telling me I don't know how to round a number? That's
not a definition of the term "rebuttal" that we'd share. There's the rub,
language is sharing, and inflation and deflation have impoverished us.
> argument, except to state
Yes, I "state", but don't we all?
> his opinion
No facts for me! Opinions only. It's not a fact the Debian constitution is in
prose? "Not... entirely" says you, "there's a 'K' and a 'Q', those aren't
prose don't you know." Why no, I didn't know... now we can argue what the
word "prose" means, oh joy.
> that the constutition is already written in the style of low-level
What's this "low-level" stuff? Is clear English "low" or "common" and a badge
of class distinction? I suppose at some places it is, sad to say, and that's
part of the problem. You probably think jargon is classy, and we all know that
inscrutability pays well.
> prose, and should therefore be (re)written
That should be 'revised' or 'amended' or even 'corrected'. Rewriting implies
the content might be changed, but I never suggested it should. It should say
just what it does, only more clearly. Heresy, I know...
> in this style in the places where it is not already.
"this style" meaning "low-level style" again, oi guv'nor.
> Despite
That contrarian fool spites himself!
> his own admissions
Admissions! The no good crook! He admits it! In his own words! The
murderer! "In the kitchen, with the wrench..."
> that this style is less accurate.
"this style" again meaning "low-level", note the repetition hammering in the
idea like a nail.
"...the style of low-level...
this style...
where it is not...
this style..."
It's like hypnosis or something.
And "this style", hah!, is not less accurate for our purposes. Hell, just say
"positive integer" if you want to be that way. "Whole number", "natural",
whatever you like, just not the more general "integer". Is that so wrong?
Can't we all just get along?
> So he doesn't appear
Appear, that's clever too. You can't "see him", that low caste lout! Dr.
Mesmer strikes again, "...it's way past ...never responded... Despite...
doesn't appear..."
> to actually
Actually amplifies 'appear', sort of repeats it.
It's impressive how stylish you are, more than me, though in a lousy cause.
> have a point,
Says you. I think my main point was the bug itself, but the side road needs
paving.
Then again maybe I don't have "A" point, I've got MANY points, a lot of which
have cut to the bone, and that's why the responses are so knee-jerk and nasty.
> or even
Even! Bad enough I don't have the right stuff anyway, but "even"!
> self-consistency.
Yeah yeah yeah. Round and round we go. Wheeeee. Your posts are consistently
something, that's for sure. Like a bowl of whipped cream; fattening, they clog
the arteries of the mind with sludge, and small amounts are fluffed up in
volume with many tiny bubbles of gas.
And furthermore, (because I'm not into the soul of wit today), I want to help
you save time. Basically we disagree about everything, even if it's only out
of reflex. If that's so, just reply with this handy function that says it all:
N(C(last))
Where 'N' is the domain of 'Nonsense', and 'C(last)' is what's in Costa's last
post. Your time is too valuable to waste on inferiors, so just quote that.
Another thing: Some may wonder, hey AC, aren't you just as bad as AS, or
worse, because you're saying things about him he doesn't like, only using more
words?
Answer: No, because it's tit for tat. I don't go hunting for it like I
noticed he does, (check his online posts over the years), and he's receiving
what he generously gives. Also, I'm not saying he's a dope -- I think he's
very clever... waaaay too clever -- and the result is POISON to rational
convivial discourse. Most of the poor goofs he puts down in his stylish way
don't have the time, inclination, or whatever to tell him what and how he's
doing wrong, so they probably quit or get sour on free software because they
wrongly think it's about smarmy university dudes like AS asserting intellectual
superiority over any who cross him over the one true definition of 'Integer'.
He's a bad example, a personification of "chilling effect", and deserves extra
help.
Yet another thing: what about the bug? Is it true that it's not real? And if
it's not are you going to insist it is anyway the way AS blathers on about?
Heck no. I've reported bad bugs before, and probably will again, and I'd post
links to 'em if anyone cares to prove I'm fallible. But I've reported more
good ones than bad, and I still think this is a darn tootin legit bug. Should
I crawl away just to avoid controversy? The bug would still be there, that
wouldn't help.
Yet yet another thing: what is this bug, I can't see it? Reread the thread or
my next irritating post, which will rehash it more thoroughly.
Last thing: what do you hope to "accomplish" if nobody else agrees? Backwards
question. Controversy is wasteful, but lays things out, shows where people
stand, (or refuse to), is a necessary yardstick of opinion, and is, like I said
before, heavenly compared to the alternative of being a helpless silent passive
tool of anybody loud and obnoxious who knows how to bark at some sheep.
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