[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ken Williams) wrote around 17 Nov 2002 news:5C4AF778-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:

> On Sunday, November 17, 2002, at 04:50  PM, Soren A. wrote:
> 
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Soren A) wrote around 11 Nov 2002
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>>
>>> "namespace" advice requested. I have written an extension 
>>> module that I need to name and get uploaded to CPAN.
>>
>> For reasons that I cannot make a good guess at, it appears that no-one
>> has read this msg.
> 
> You didn't notice the reply from Max?

I am reading and posting to the List using the Gmane interface. Whether
or not anyone thinks that is a good thing, the bottom line is that I
wouldn't have subscribed to this List in the first place if Gmane didn't
offer an NNTP view into it. I am far too overextended vis a vis
subscription to multiple developers Lists otherwise. 

Discussion of the virtues of Gmane aside (OT), Max's article never
showed up there. So the answer is "no": although I have taken the
trouble to try to ensure I can read follow-ups with maximum efficiency
(by setting up a good newsreader that tracks replies and shows threaded
discussions), I never saw Max's post. A system malfunction occured
somewhere. Frothy obfuscating clouds were invoked repeatedly (based on 
somebody's pet peeve) over my munged email address, but that really has 
nothing to do with it at all.
 
> Also, most of the discussion on the topic seemed to take place 
> in the other thread you started, "Notice of intention to release 
> Perl module specific to  Cygwin."  Maybe you're just not seeing 
> all the replies through the news gateway?

I saw the other replies. It was in that thread that the discussion
became most unsatisfactory. What appears not to have happened was anyone
of the folk (I mean David Boyce, but I am trying to avoid -- and I am
sure I will be unsuccessful -- the appearance of an ad-hominum attack on
that gentleman) troubling themselves to check THIS thread for the
original posting that explained why this proposed module is needed. None
quoted any of it or referred to it, nor did any of Boyce's replies show
the slightest discomfort with dogmatically asserting opinions in spite
of his ignorance of 

  (a) the nature of the functionality to be supplied by the module,
  (b) the Cygwin software and what the user's experience of it is.

THAT really bothers me. When people are given free license to spout off
in willful ignorance of salient aspects of the topic (without anyone
noting it critically), but protestations regarding the low quality of
the discussion (and therefore its wastefulness) are considered verboten,
I think something is wrong. 

You know, I think if I don't know what takes place when using a
particular platform -- what unique problems might exist on that
platform, that don't on others -- and I am therefore not equipped to
make judgements about the need for a Perl solution (let alone how it
ought to be implemented), I think I'd just keep my typing hand in my
pocket and resist clogging the List with non-useful junk that someone
else might feel obliged to reply to.

I now see that Max wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]   >
From: "Max" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where it runs or what it Does?? (RFC) 
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002    18   :03:25 +50578934 

    Seems like a cool module ... the thing that came to my mind was that
    this seems like an extension to File::Spec .. how about 

    File::Spec::Cygwin

    You would have to also write the other routines that the File::Spec
    interface expects, but that would seem like a good place for it
    to me ... I know that some of the File::Spec modules have platform
    specific extensions    ...

    Just my .02.  Good module idea!

Max
-------------------------------------------------------------------

[Thank you for answering, Max, and I'm sorry I missed you earlier.]

Perhaps in the future discussions could be started with File::Spec's
maintainer(s) about empoering the File::Spec::Cygwin module with the
functionality this project I am developing would provide. It won't be
trivial. All questions raised about this were answered (as well as I
could) in either the original posting or my follow-ups in the other
thread. 

>> A lot of effort on my part has gone in to posting 
>> announcements, replies and explanations on this List regarding the
>> Cygwin-specific Paths module. I am done now. I suggest further
>> replies be directed >/dev/null since I am departing with a distinct
>> sense that this List is very possibly not worth the effort.

> This list is sometimes useful, sometimes silent.  Sort of 
> hit-or-miss which one occurs for any given thread.  That's what 
> happens on a list like this when nobody is really "in charge" - 
> a pattern you'll find lots of places throughout the open-source 
> community.  Nobody needs to apologize for it, because who would 
> do the apologizing if nobody is in charge?

Certainly you don't need to apologize for it. I see that you have
often-enough posted and gotten no replies yourself. What you need to
realize is that if you or anyone else took my message as accusatory (and
therefore implicitly demanding of an explanation), that *I* didn't start
with the accusatory tone. From the beginning Boyce theorized that any
miscommunications were probably my fault, that my intentions were not
sincere in asking for discussion, etc. etc. Substituting hyper-critical,
adversarial stodginess for any real effort to understand the key issues
himself before launching barbed critiques, he set that in motion. I am
just finishing it now. 
 
> What we don't get a lot of in this list is angry posts, which in 
> my mind makes it a pretty good list.

Really? Well, OK, you and everyone else is believed by modern sentiment to 
be entitled to hold whatever twisted or hideously simplistic views they 
wish ;-). However I myself, for one, think that "nice" is highly overrated 
when you get right down to it. When "nice" becomes the sole criteria by 
which everything is judged it becomes a tyrant. What you end up with then, 
is "Brave New World" where people are in love with the mechanisms of their 
subjugation and even thinking about resistance is "bad manners."

Without anger, injustice in this world is never challenged. Stupidity and 
ingrained habit and dogma is never questioned. I consider slandering of the 
positive aspect of anger to be the sign of a warped value system. Nothing 
personal.

  Soren A


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