Re: [Chicken-users] chicken and stalin

[Brandon Van Every]

On 6/5/07, Dan Muresan <address@hidden> wrote:
> > This goes far beyond games on Windows.  This is about people
> > completely wasting their time on projects that, if they have no
> > academic context, are completely worthless.  I've gone bankrupt
> > chasing nonsense.  I have delusions of grandeur that I *might* save
> > some young buck from his/her utter cluelessness in the face of
> > industrial reality.
>
> Brandon, your penchant for getting involved in long, useless polemics is
> NOT a quality.

Dispelling complacency is the only way you ever *get* any quality.

> Also, you may want to be more cautious when judging the
> difficulty level of various software platforms, especially when you
> haven't really tried using them.
>
> I think it's pretty well established that Stalin (and Gambit?) are
> faster than Chicken, but Chicken has a much better ecosystem (community,
> libraries etc).

I just brushed up on what's out there for Stalin.  Seems like it's
whatever's on the Stalin FTP site, which is pretty narrow in focus.

> If you see people interested in Stalin, I'm pretty sure
> they know the deal they're getting. You're not adding value by trying to
> convince them otherwise;

I don't expect the average language noob to have any idea why
academics avoid doing certain things.  Nor do I expect most people to
have a sense of relevant strategic growth in open source.  What I do
expect, is for people to get carried away with "Wow it's fast!"
because it sounds so kewl.  Yes I have a low opinion of people's
actual ability to steward open source projects to a successful
conclusion.  It comes from 14 years of experience watching the
fireworks and falling on my own face more than enough times.

I'll repeat what I said before.  If Stalin is so great, then someone
go start a Stalin community.  That's what needs to happen for it to be
relevant.

> and they certainly won't appreciate your
> suggestion that you know better what's good for them.

People who are smart enough to learn from others' experience will pay
attention.  People who aren't, will suffer until they are.

> Let's stick to discussions that provide value to all participants.

That's never generally true on any mailing list.  Clearly you don't
value this one.

> Keep
> in mind that when you feel like belaboring a random point to death, you
> can always reply in private.

This discussion isn't random.  As for belabored, it reminds me of the
joke about 2 economists.  They're walking down Wall Street and there's
a $20 bill on the ground.  One of them exclaims to the other, "Look, a
$20 bill!"  The other says, "No that's impossible, someone would have
picked it up already" and they go right on walking.

You think everyone's well aware of the implications of support.  I don't.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every