Frank W. Zammetti wrote: > If someone says to you "the sky is purple", and totally believes it > themselves, but you believe it isn't true yet you say nothing, aren't you > on an intellectual level lying?
No, you're just not saying anything. Being agnostic-tending-towards-atheistic if I go to a Christian church and somebody tells me there is a god am I "intellectually lying" if I don't enter into a debate about it? _I_ don't think so; I think I'm being polite and non-confrontational. Disagreement does not demand confrontation, it simply invites it, and the nature of the confrontation can vary wildly (for instance, if somebody is telling me that the Holocaust didn't happen in a hostile tone that person is extremely likely to become injured and I am extremely likely to be happy that years of practice finally got used :) But if somebody tells me JSF is the shit, even if I question their motives, I'd probably just say "Oh, why's that?", evaluate the response, perhaps offer a similar or differing opinion, drink a few beers, and move on. > My feeling is that if you see something that you don't agree with that you > think can be made better, you have an obligation to speak up and try. You > may fail miserably, but again, inaction is worse than being wrong IMO. > I just don't see it that way; that's all. I do not have an obligation to fix (or try to fix) everything I think can be made better. There is _too_much_that_needs_fixing_ and the overwhelming guilt I would feel at my inevitable failure would be unbearable. The world is an imperfect place and will remain that way despite any effort on my part. Does this mean I am completely inactive? Of course not. But I must pick my battles wisely. I might make a suggestion about somebody's code style here and there, I might try to introduce ideas into a framework. If they are rejected and I feel strongly enough about it I'll fork. If I feel it's important but not enough to fork then I'll modify my own local version. If it's not that important I'll drop some utility classes on top of it. If it's not even that important I'll do it some other way. > Your absolutely right about that. But clearly, being part of the mainline > code is a better opportunity to get your ideas to the masses than doing > something on your own, and hence it can be frustrating to not be able to > do that. Yeah. I've had a number of things I'd like to fix in Microsoft Windows and the US government yet I am rarely approached to contribute my ideas, and my own approaches have been strangely ignored (I think making solar thermal heating systems on new buildings, at the very least commercial ones, mandatory is about the most sensible idea I've ever had but it hasn't happened yet :( > I understand that, and really have no basic problem with it. They have > earned that right of refusal, without question. All I'm saying is there > is a barrier for someone outside the circle to get code in the mainline, > as you say, that a committer doesn't have (not to the same extent > anyway... other committers could veto of course), and this can be > frustrating. Is it wrong that it works this way? No. Can it be > frustating? Yes. That's all I'm saying :) > No question that life can be frustrating sometimes, especially when it involves computers, and doubly-so when it involves people too ;) > Your right, it does. :) But it also kind of proves mine... if my original > AjaxTags had been accepted and were now part of Struts, would they be more > popular now? I suspect they would. Much more importantly though, would > it have helped the community more? Again, I suspec the answer is yes. > Again, this isn't sour grapes... however I may have felt a year ago I > don't feel now, I'm fine with how things turned out. > So I guess it's a good thing they weren't "taken in to the fold?" ;) But seriously... if you wanted AjaxTags to get exposure then limiting yourself to the Struts newsgroup (which is the only place I ever saw anything about it) probably isn't the best way to go about it. Guerrilla Marketing! If beating your head against one wall doesn't work, beat it against another... and another... until you stop leaving little spoogy red marks! :D >> One of the few times where I'll disagree out loud with you ;) >> > What were the other times, silent protest?!? :-) LOL > I don't feel obligated to open my mouth every time I disagree with someone ;) > And I think you have the right attitude. But can you really say that, > from a technical standpoint, you don't expect that a committer knows what > they're talking about? I keep my hopes high and my expectations low ;) > Certainly that should be one prerequisite for > being a committer on *any* project, shouldn't it? "Should" implies a level of obligation I am uncomfortable with in this context. (One of my more irritating catch-phrases that my friends really wish I wouldn't say any more ;) I _hope_ that anybody contributing code to a project is a good programmer and hopefully a good designer. > And from the > perspective of the majority of the general developer community, isn't it > fair to think that when they ask how to do something, and a committer > responds, that the response they get is viewed as more "authoritative" > than if you or I answer? > That I don't know... I'd have to think about that. I certainly hope nobody views any of my answers as authoritative, _that_ much I'm sure of ;) Having seen my code... I can pretty safely say I should _never_ answer any questions! > Again, I think that's the right attitude to have. But when your weighing > an opinion, as you necessarily do subconsciously, do you think that Ted > for instance knows more about Struts than me? I can tell you that *I* > think he does! :) Therefore, when I'm looking for a question to be > answered, a *technical* question, his answer means more than my own, and > it should! > Most questions are "API-type" questions. By this I mean it an issue of RTFM. In those cases I don't really put much more weight on one person's answer or another, I guess, but that's also because I can RTFM as well as anybody. The whole JSF vs. Action stuff is both technical and philosophical. I still find I "think" better with the Action stuff, although that might change at some point, and maybe it _should_ change. The whole "what are we even disagreeing about in this thread" is even less technical and more philosophical and then all bets are off on whose opinions matter to me (mostly nobodies at this point ;) > Your probably right about that, but it kind of started out as a > non-technical debate in the first place :) I'm not so sure it devolved at > all, rather it just continued as it started! > "How could this thread get any more boring?" Memo to the menfolk: if your womanfolk asks you "would you love me any less if I got fat" do NOT, I repeat do NOT reply with "How could I love you any less?" Dave --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
