Tech Thread Flame War Cease Fire Declared (vanity)

(self) ^ | 2010-07-24 | Dayglored

[dayglored]

Jim Robinson has laid down the law with regard to tech thread flame wars.

I am motivated to make sure we tech-thread-heads are aware of this. This vanity is a heads-up with regard to Jim's comments last night, and I've added a few thoughts of my own as an observer.

Here's what Jim said:

To All: [That goes for everyone.] I don’t see any reason whatsoever to be having flamewars on FR over computer products. Those who have a problem with Apple should just not buy the product and that takes care of that. Don’t come to FR to flame those who like the product. That’s just dumb. Who cares what computer products people use.

Everyone on these threads need to lighten up! On all sides!!

I think Jim's declaration of a cease-fire is clear as a bell -- the disruption, flame wars, abusive comments, etc. that have characterized many tech threads, especially Apple threads, are to stop.

I'm sure we can all abide by this reminder of FR site policy, with no loss of meaningful content, and our enjoyment of the conversations in these threads will increase considerably. Arguments can be had civilly, and without rancor. We're adults, not 13-year-olds.

Personally, I think this applies by simple extension to the Windows threads, Linux threads, indeed any of the computer / high-tech threads. So I encourage ALL partisans, pro-Apple and anti-Apple, pro-Microsoft and anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux and anti-Linux, etc. to heed this reminder.

I am going to ping a handful of my FRiends of all tech persuasions, so that we can spread the word as widely as necessary, to ensure that nobody can claim they didn't know about it.

Here's to a saner, more enjoyable tech environment on FreeRepublic!

Thanks,
Dayglored

[TXnMA]

Programmed in assembly using "poke."

..and CALLed into BASIC using "PEEK"...

Used to use that "cheat" during friendly contests to see how powerful a BASIC program we could write in an 80-character line of code. The "big" trick was making CALLs to entire Monitor ROM routines -- instead of just assembly code you'd "hacked together"...

(That was back in the day when "gay" meant "happy" -- and "hacking" was a good thing!) :-(

[TXnMA]

"How about peole that beat me to stealing a classic joke... can I still call them names? "

"Peole" is probably as close as you can get, now... '-)

[TXnMA]

LOL! Reminds me of a toy that keeps Texas Aggies occupied for hours:

It's a card -- with "See other side." -- printed on both sides... '-)

[dayglored]

> In the end, it comes down to this: use the right tool for the job. We all have to realize what we consider the right tool for a particular job may not be the right tool when evaluated by someone else's criteria and priorities.

That's exactly correct, IMO.

Friends and family ask me, "What computer should I get?", and I respond, "Depends on what you want to do with it. Figure that out first, and then I'll tell you what computer I think does that job best."

And that's why, after 40 years of playing with computers, I have an array of Unix, Linux, PC/Windows, and Mac/OS-X machines cluttering my house (and work). (And a bunch of ancient hardware, but I don't use it anymore.) If you have enough different tasks to do, then "Get the right tool for the job" may cause you to have a lot of different machines around.

And another person may use a very different set of tools, depending on their background, familiarities, and personal preferences.

Which is one reason why the flamewars here were so disgusting to me... I'm very glad we're taking steps to calm them down.

[Company Man]

REAL PROGRAMMERS COPY CON PROGRAM.EXE

[dayglored]

> There’s 10 kinds of people, those that understand binary and those that don’t.

Yep! I got the T-shirt for my daughter a few years ago from ThinkGeek.com:

[dayglored]

> I'm all hurt, you didn't ping me. And you being another FORTRAN beast and all...

My apologies; as I was about to post the vanity thread I got a call that caused me to have to drop what I was doing and basically run out for quite a few hours... so I missed a lot of folks including you in my initial ping. I'm hoping that Swordmaker's Mac ping, and Shadowace's Tech ping, pull in the ones I missed...

> Cheers!

Right back at'cha!

[dayglored]

> aw, yer not ‘putin till yer ‘putin with vacuum tubes. and i don’t mean the display.

That is the truth!

[dayglored]

> People who have a problem with Apple shouldn’t have bought one.

Agreed -- but it seems that most of the folks who trashed Apple and Apple customers, were not themselves Apple customers (and often said so proudly).

It got a little surreal at times.

[dayglored]

> Do you have an apple thingy going on?

In what regard? I have a number of Apple products and like them for what they're good for. Same is true of Microsoft and a number of other vendors of hardware and software.

I own no stock in any of these companies.

What sort of "thingy" did you have in mind?

[dayglored]

Yes, that's exactly right!!

[dayglored]

> REAL PROGRAMMERS COPY CON PROGRAM.EXE

And in case the above doesn't display:

http://www.xkcd.com/378/

[EasySt]

I had it worse than all of them....

I programmed in APL...

And later became a Certified OS/2 Engineer...

(All after I got bored with my Atari and my Happy Drives...)

[dayglored]

> I programmed in APL...

I still have a closet full of my leftover right-parentheses. I'm going to will them to my daughter.

[dayglored]

> Let’s not throw out the baby with bath water.

Not likely to happen. There will still be plenty of lively discussion of pros and cons. What needed to go were the pointless disruptions and personal attacks.

[dayglored]

> Maybe each side could make a Religion Caucus thread, some treat it as such.

You won't be surprised to know that that was seriously considered at some points in the recent past. :)

[PA Engineer]

Lucky for me, the next semester (1984), we had access to Apple II's with cool 5 1/4 floppy disks!

I actually know what you mean. I went back to college on "Sabbatical" between my work in Saudi and Mexico to immerse in Spanish and study F77 simulation programming. I got to sit at home with my 64K Mac, telecommute with my blazing fast 300 baud modem. I could drink coffee, smoke cigars, watch TV, vacuum, and run the blender while programming. Computing had definitely turned the corner at that time.

[tacticalogic]

Certified OS/2 Engineer...

Is it true they called it that because it was half an operating system?

[Gondring]

Whoa! That’s Chuck Norris confidence!

[raybbr]

When you "programmers" can read seven different ladder logic programs with up to 24,000 rungs, troubleshoot them write them and understand every machine they are being used on - give me a call....

;^)