On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 06:12:53PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > Bjarni Ingi Gislason <bjarn...@rhi.hi.is> writes: > > > It is not enough to check just the Debian part of a package. The > > part that comes from upstream should be scrutinized. > > If you want to try to teach various upstreams to use the word "illegal" > the way that you want them to do so, feel free. You already have all the > tools that you need to take this on personally. But this is not the > purpose of the Lintian tool. >
One can't teach people, who do not want to learn and unlearn, anything. "What is good teaching? One can teach manipulations without understanding; the present students have had so much of this that they almost demand that this be done in at least all of the "elementary" courses. This is encouraged by the present elementary and secondary schools. The products of such education no longer have their original thinking abilities." [1] ">what is the point of HAVING them [teachers]? The best statement in that respect came from one of my eldest daughters' advisors: "I'm not here to teach you. You are here to teach yourselves. I'm here to show you where the good stuff is, and to wipe the cobwebs off your minds"." [2] ">THE BEST WAY TO HELP A COLLEGE STUDENT IS TO GET THEM TO HELP >THEMSELVES - professional life will be a lot less forgiving. THIS should start in first grade, if not earlier. The teacher does not teach the student; the teacher can only help the student learn." [1] "But a large proportion of college students have had the ability to think about what they are doing destroyed. Should we teach students to act like machines? This is how they have been taught what the schools call "mathematics", but which does not make it any easier for them to understand mathematical concepts than when they started out, AT BEST." [1] ### And too many programmers do not generally want to unlearn anything, to be able to learn something better. They also show me, that they do not understand, can't think, reflect on some things, lack discernment. They, as too many people, are controlled by their opinions, beliefs. They, as too many people, are not in control of their opinions, beliefs; otherwise it would be easy for them to inspect, investigate them fully and to change them easily to better ones; ones which do not cause wrong positives (negatives), misunderstanding, incomprehension, misleadingness or any other flaws or harm. They show me a corrupt/corrupted mind. They show me, that they do not show professional attitude. They show me, that they do not know or ignore their own ignorance. "Illegal character" is a corrupt term. Isn't it illegal to state something is illegal, when it is not illegal? ### I see the purpose of "lintian" to report violations of defined quality requirements. As a side effect, it can show learn-willing (teachable) readers better "behaviour". What is of higher quality, "illegal" or "invalid", "legal" or "valid"? In which context? Can they be swapped without any loss of meaning and in any context? ### "This second radical novelty shares the usual fate of all radical novelties: it is denied, because its truth would be too discomforting. I have no idea what this specific denial and disbelief costs the United States, but a million dollars a day seems a modest guess." [3] "Since breaking out of bad habits, rather than acquiring new ones, is the toughest part of learning we must expect from that system permanent mental damage for most students exposed to it." [4] "The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions." [5] ########## [1] Herman Rubin in the Usenet forum "misc.education.science". [2] Alberto Moreira in the Usenet forum "misc.education". [3] Page xxix in: On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science Edsger W. Dijkstra SIGCSE Bulletin 1989, 21(1), pp. xxv-xxxix. Also "www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/" [4] Page xxxvii in: On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science Edsger W. Dijkstra SIGCSE Bulletin 1989, 21(1), pp. xxv-xxxix. Also "www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/" [5] Page xxxviii in: On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science Edsger W. Dijkstra SIGCSE Bulletin 1989, 21(1), pp. xxv-xxxix. Also "www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/" -- Bjarni I. GĂslason