On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 14:46 -0500, John Macdonald wrote: > There have been people talking about certification for well > over a decade now, talking more about it is very stale.
And here's my problem. Please look at the subject. Why are you dragging
certification back into this? I thought we dropped that poor dead horse
as too much flame bait to continue discussing (and Ben provided links to
previous discussions we could review). I accept that writing cool code
is THE BEST WAY to help the Popularity of Perl. I (and others) keep
saying that. But you don't seem to want to accept that we _agree_ with
that. Every time we try to bring up other, _supplemental_ ideas, someone
responds about how bad advocacy is. Or how certification doesn't work
(which was just ONE of the ideas put forth). I mentioned a few others,
but some were too busy shooting down the discussion on general
principle. I didn't realize "advocacy" can _only_ mean browbeating
people about how Perl will save the world and cure cancer and only make
me (and you by extension) uncool. So don't do it, ever, in any way
(well, other than coding on the things you would think are cool).
I give up trying to make any suggestions, or even having a discussion to
_find_ suggestions, that don't fall into your "Just Fucking Do It" ethos
(contributing cool code seeming to be the only 'It" being allowed, since
discussing other things we might then go out and do isn't permitted
without being shouted down). Your right, only contributing to Perl 6 or
writing the next killer app are worth putting time towards.
Just a hint for dealing with people in real life, should you ever have
to. It may seem easier to be negative, but it tends to quickly bring
conversations down to defense by mutually assured destruction. When I
say "I'm interested in discussing ways to increase the popularity of
Perl. How about X?", responding with "Being popular is pointless and
dumb. Just stop talking and do Y" not only doesn't convince me, it
pisses me off. A lot. Some people do a better job of pretending it
doesn't.
Just a few examples of blanket communication killers I grabbed quickly:
> > Advocacy *doesn't* work well.
==
> > 2. Make Perl easier to learn. In terms of utility and usability,
>
> Yes. Make Perl into Visual Basic. And remove all that confusing
> regular
> expression stuff.
==
> > To put it extremely bluntly: certifications are socialist.
==
> But you have to choose your fights wisely, and to
> me this doesn't look like an effective one, compared to how effective
> a more JFDI ("just fucking do it") approach that sets about solving
> interesting problems
=
> ranting about
> the matter endlessly on mailing lists; shouting down people who think
> that having more great software would be a good thing.
>
> But I could easily be speculating wrongly. Maybe rants do work!
=
> i'm sorry but you appear to be of your mind.
Apparently, yes.
--
Sean Quinlan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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