On Saturday 23 Apr 2011 17:53:30 Randal L. Schwartz wrote: > >>>>> "Raymond" == Raymond Wan <r....@aist.go.jp> writes: > Raymond> But, if both sides (both of you) and third-party-people like me > still Raymond> remember exchanges on this list from almost 2 years ago, > > I didn't remember it at all. I had to google for my name and his. I > *moved on*. I had to re-read the entire thread for context to respond > (burning about 20 minutes of what would have been otherwise productive > time) just to have a response to his allegation. And in the light of > having reviewed the thread, the key element (that his solution actually > *was* proper) came to me, even though it didn't at that point. > > But it's why I wrote the response as I did. I said "here are the > preconditions, and if this is all true, then you are lying". What he > fails to understand (and I wish he would) is that the preconditions > didn't apply, and therefore "you are lying" doesn't apply to him. He > failed to read the whole letter. He failed to understand that the last > few paragraphs clearly didn't apply to him.
Just a note about etymology and semantics - it is a good idea to *never* accuse someone of "lying" in an online forum. Avoid using this word. To quote some definitionf of "to lie": «To give false information intentionally. » -- http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lie#Verb_2 «to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive » -- http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lie%5B3%5D In short it is a very strong accusation, a deliberate act of dishonesty, that to many Israeli Jews bring associations of various Biblical passages with a lot of fire and brimstone and what not. Most honest people will never lie in this way, or excluding the natural http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_lies or the natural acceptable lies when under threat of force, etc., but these are beyond the scope of this. When someone is saying something that's false or incorrect, they are likely not saying it deliberately. They may be misled or too clueless about it. They may believe that their way is superior (after weighing all the arguments) - like "XML::Simple is great." vs. "XML::Simple should be called XML::Evil" (things that are a matter of choice rather than absolute ethics and morality). Or it could be other forms of ignorance that I forgot. So it's a good rule of thumb to *never* accuse someone of lying. There are many other words "That's not true", "you are misleading" "wrong" , etc. > > I wished I had had time to read the whole thread the first time. But I > don't have time for that anymore here. I only have a few moments from > time to time to check the answers, not the questions. > > And now I've burned another hour on this issue, when I could have been > productively helping other people. {sigh} That's the *real* cost of > this. My psychotherapist told me that I should try to maximise pleasure (without getting into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism , naturlaly), and not productivity, because I have an obsession with being productive most of the time and it can make me stressed. It's a good advice to follow - it's OK to waste time. Maybe sometimes you should even do something that is a waste of time. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Rethinking CPAN - http://shlom.in/rethinking-cpan 95% of Programmers consider 95% of the code they did not write, in the bottom 5%. Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
