On Tue, Jan 08, 2002 at 08:55:12PM -0500, Soren Andersen wrote: >On 8 Jan 2002 at 19:14, Christopher Faylor wrote: >>They don't seem to have anyone like me, for instance. :-) > >I don't know what to make of that, precisely. It doesn't seem to me >that you manifest particularly obnoxious behavior.
I guess I'll have to try harder. :-) >> >I've seen all this from certain people involved in minGW. Overall, >> >though, its an amazing thing that minGW even exists, and has >> >accomplished as much as it as. >> >> I really don't see very much of this at all. I'm surprised to see this >> observation. > >Well, everyone experiences different things. That is a large general truth >about life in all sorts of realms, far beyond "just online" or "just among >hackers on mailing lists". Yup. >But specifically in reply, Chris, since I was, I thought, VERY careful to >preface and intersperse all my comments with things like "I don't mean to >dis anyone at minGW," I hope that somehow an overly broad and vague and >erronious impression isn't created by this, your response, which seems much >more "concerned [as in "worried"] than I feel would be warranted by a >reading of my message that accurately grasped my intent (which was first of >all to praise cygwin). Sorry, but if you use terms like "testiness", I think that people will take it as a criticism. When I was a kid, and first learned about the term "no offense" I thought I'd had a magic phrase that would insulate me from all rebuke. The first time I told my sister "You're stupid. No offense.", my parents disabused me of that notion. Similary, you said that you didn't mean to "dis" anyone and then mentioned "testiness", "lack of balanced perspective", "inability to grasp the perspectives of newcomers", and "arrogance" with respect to people involved with MinGW. I don't think it is unusual to experience a certain feeling of negativeness when these types of words and phrases are used. And, since you are defending your use of them, let me point out, that I don't think they really added anything to your treatise. In fact, I'm not even sure what the point of your message was. I thought it was some sort of exhortation to MinGW maintainers to "play nice" with the cygwin guys. Or, maybe it was an attempt to explain MinGW people to cygwin people. I'm not certain that either was really needed. I think this was a simple misunderstanding over some words on a web page. My opinion. >[cgf:] >> There is no "over there". > >Of course there is. If one refrains from placing inferred nuances into >my words, all that my words meant (like the words of the OP) is that >there is a minGW community, vaguely -- as you indicated, a core group >of maintainers, whom I have much respect for -- and that community has >its own Lists and sites (as cited by the OP). And maybe or maybe not >(debatably) its own collective prevailing attitudes. Ok. I was wrong to infer anything from the term "over there". Sorry. >> The MinGW maintainers are a friendly bunch. I scan the MinGW lists for >> cygwin issues and a number of them read the cygwin list as well. > >As I believe I said?!? I don't recall your mentioning the fact that I scanned the mingw lists. I'd be surprised that you would know that. Adding the counterpoint that MinGW maintainers read this list was a repetition but it seemed to add a nice balance to my statement. >>Hopefully this can all get resolved peacefully and harmoniously. >>[snip] > >> So, please don't invent any antipathy between our two groups. > >Perhaps *you* individually saw my words as an attempt to do so, hopefully >that wasn't a widespread impression. I think going back and looking at the >msg of the OP is warrented if one is going to debate my intention any >further after I have made this reply. There is IMO a clear probability that >the OP's msg may be read by some people as evoking the sense that there's >controversy or disharmony between cygwin and minGW. What I read from the terms "peacefully and harmoniously" was that there was another potential alternative. In my experience, one doesn't usually use terms like this unless you're anticipating at least the potential for a fight. However, it's not really that big a deal, I guess. You've clarified and if I was in the minority of people who misinterpreted your intent, then I apologize, again. >My message was addressed to that possibility, not to fan any flames but >to provide historical perspective to those who might be "catching up" Ah. It was a historical perspective. Hmm. You did say "historically speaking" at one point. How can you claim to be absent from the list and then feel the need to provide "history"? Were you only interested in providing ancient history? Or maybe history with gaps in it? How could you provide an accurate history if you haven't actually been paying attention? (which is your right, of course) In any event, your interpretation of mingw and its developers seems to be very different from mine. Reading between the lines, it seems like you have run across some haughty reactions from people in the MingGW community. I haven't experienced this. Hmm. Have you been reading the mingw mailing lists? That wasn't clear. I don't see any messages from you but I've only been archiving them since August or so. >-- as there are always many newcomers to any special-interest >discussion in this large realm, be it "GNU" or "Apache" or "Mozilla" or >whatever -- people who weren't involved from the early inception stages >and may be lacking in knowledge of where things have come from and how >they got here. I am a firm believer in knowing as much history as >possible; I believe that when people know the past they can better >attempt not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, among >other benefits. I implicitly invite correction from you or anyone if I >mis-cite facts of a historical nature Ok. You mentioned Mumit Khan as being the only person who could speak for MinGW but that hasn't been the case for some time. Mumit's participation in the project is minimal to nonexistent now. That seems like a pretty serious misinterpretation of the project to me. >(as opposed to reportage of personal experience, which is in a sense >incontestable) ; however I do not feel myself required by any sort of >humility-virtue ethic to silently submit to significantly >misinterpreted readings of my statements that infer meanings they were >not intended to have. Wow. >>I have never seen anyone badmouth cygwin in the mingw mailing lists. >>In my opinion MinGW is a sister project and should be treated as such. > >That's great. I have seen (newbie) posters to THIS List somewhat >brusquely (but not outside the "cultural-style" of such Lists as this >and the hundreds of others out there on the 'Net) told that minGW >questions were OT and won't be answered here. Absolutely. I'm one of the people (if not the main person) who tells people to go to the mingw mailing lists if they have mingw questions. I've seen similar exhortations in the mingw mailing lists. I don't recall any particular brusqueness, though. I'm not saying that there can't be an occasional testy response in mingw-users but I don't think it is a general trend there. That mailing list does not get anywhere near as much volume as the cygwin mailing list. So, while there is some repetition in the messages, it isn't the mind numbing, morale sapping, punch in the face, type of repetition and cluelessness that we see here. >Perhaps that has contributed to a subconcious impression *on my part* >that cygwin folk were a little sick and tired of minGW if they weren't >actively involved in it themselves. That's all. I'm not sick and tired of *anything* to do with cygwin. I love cygwin. (hopefully you skipped my previous paragraph) >> gcc -mno-cygwin isn't going anywhere. I somtimes speculate that we will be >> deprecating it but since this switch is required to build some things in the >> 'winsup hierarchy' we really can't do that. >> >> I've also speculated that gcc -mno-cygwin should just run a mingw cross >> compiler but that is rather infeasible, too. It means that if you are >> building the winsup hierarchy from scratch you have to somehow also build a >> completely separate compiler and linker. There is no way that I even want >> to imagine the Makefile nightmare necessary to accomplish that. >> >> So, what is needed is someone to fix gcc, ld, and whatever to do the right >> thing. Barring that, gcc -mno-cygwin will remain relatively stagnant. > >Thanks, That's it? Thanks? I provide you with the details of what's wrong currently and what needs to be done to improve it and... just "Thanks"? Where's the high-minded committment to make things better? The call to arms? The bugle cry? Come on! We can take this hill! Let's do it for Cygwin! Let's do it for MinGW! We *can* improve gcc -mno-cygwin. However, it won't be just me or just you. It will be the community. Although, actually, I suppose it could be just me now that I think of it. >and I hope that readers for whom my discussion herein of dialogue >itself -- and 'feelings,' 'motives,' and 'attitudes' and so forth that >accompanies it -- is "objectionable," will just have the self-possessed >good sense to ignore my messages if they make them unmanageably >uncomfortable, rather than knee-jerking in reaction. What I mean is, >I've noticed that some people on technical Lists can't tell reasonable >but difficult attempts at dialogue and reaching understanding across >mutual comprehension barriers, from "flames" or "trolling" -- an >unfortunate lack-of-wisdom handicap but one that belongs to the people >it belongs to, not to me. I am not trying to make trouble, I simply >find based on life-experience that it is valuable to pay some attention >to dialogue and how it is carried out as an issue in itself, rather >than just always react by killfiling people or responding with brusque >criticisms and put-downs (which are the verbal moral equivalent of >bombs dropped from aircraft). It is my observation that many Free (not >Free Beer...) software communities are slowed down in the hurdles they >can overcome because of handicaps in communication outside their group >(between their group and others). If I have an agenda it might be said >that it is to get people to see that there is room for improvement in >dialogue skills itself and that this can yield great rewards. But I >realize that many people cannot hear me and will just get pissed-off, >in some cases, at the lengthy or non-technical, humanistic nature of >what I am trying to express. Although there are perspectives which could be used for a multitude of perspicacious ideals, it pays to remember that if we cannot communicate with ourselves honestly then all other communication must, by definition, be duplicitious. There are those among us who wave the flag with great glee. We cannot staunch their words. It would be a sin against both God and utility to even attempt such folly. But yet, the need for clarity, the outright requirement to expose platitudes, the shivering abandonment of artifice exposed -- such pursuits cannot be ignored. No sane society (or mailing list) would repress them. Although some societies have done so and occasionally seemed to flourish, it is my belief that such will always be doomed in time. Still, there must be balance. But true balance requires wisdom and wisdom is a trial both in the gaining and in the keeping. There are those who say that wisdom is only in the striving never to be fully experienced and they may well be right. It's not for me to say. Yet, when I am assailed by the need for repetition, when I am forced to refine and distill my words, I admit to a certain gnawing desperation. It is my hubris. I believe that each carefully crafted message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] is an immutable pearl destined to be worn on the neck of posterity. To have my pearls strung on inferior strands which break and scatter to the floor where they are crushed underfoot by the clodhoppers of ignorance, or worse to have the pearls exposed as mere paste when I, in a rush, am proved to misconstrue, misinterpret, or even malign the gestalt to which I fancy myself a conscious, active participant -- that is what can hollow me. However, I cannot fancy that I am on the road to wisdom without the occasional gnawing bite in the meaty part of my thigh from the collie that lives along the road. So, I must wince, bandage the bite, and move on. Wisdom cannot be gained without striving and striving means, occasionally, failing/falling. Recognizing the fall, not saying "I meant to do that", is hard. Sometimes recognizing the success, and not saying "I meant to do that" is even harder. That's where the honesty comes in even if there is always a doubt that you are being truly honest, but then that's part of the striving too. cgf -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
