Oh, calling it out is fine. I was talking only about resenting it, which harms you and does no balancing benefit. You can do the one without the other. Me, I'm more likely to ignore it, or at least to ignore it longer, but that's a personal choice.
--- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* It would be nice to spend billions on schools and roads, but right now that money is desperately needed for political ads. -Andy Borowitz */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Farley, Peter Sent: Monday, March 27, 2023 15:31 In one of those cases we can agree: dumber to provide resentment when that was the OP's intent. Trolls should simply be ignored. "Unintentional" is a different case. Once is no problem - even perhaps a few times. When it becomes more regular or even expected is when it becomes unacceptable, whether from just one speaker or from more than one. I have come to believe that persistent "unintentional" ones need to be called out and challenged, because they are (or can be) hurtful, intended or not. In this particular instance, I suspect the disrespect was not intentional, but it rankled anyway because it felt to me like it had been used too frequently here in the recent past (note - FELT like, whether actually true or not). I suspect my cranky was turned up a notch more than it needed to be, but there it is. I've done what my cranky believed needed to be done, and won't harp on it again. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Bob Bridges Sent: Monday, March 27, 2023 3:02 PM What I'm really thinking is that if you take offense, it harms you - maybe just a little, maybe a lot depending on what you do with it - and harms the other guy not at all. Yes, the other guy should be polite, and so should I; I'm not disagreeing with that. But I'm not talking about the folks who aren't polite (and there'll always be those who aren't), I'm talking about how I should receive it. If I resent it when the offense is unintentional, that's pretty dumb. And if I resent it when resentment is what the speaker wanted from me, to me that seems even dumber. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Farley, Peter Sent: Monday, March 27, 2023 12:03 Respectfully, I disagree. It isn't a waste of time or energy to be offended by patent insults, however slyly delivered or with whatever level of snigger behind the words. I did not used to support any of the campaigns against "micro-aggressions" so popular in recent years on university and college campuses across the country, but I have come to see that they are not entirely wrong-headed or petty or overblown. Taken too far at times, yes, I see that too. But they are not wrong at the base. This particular one just "got to me". The proverbial straw on that poor camel's back. I'm old and cranky and ornery, so I say things when they happen to hit me because time is not on my side. I do try very hard not to impugn anyone else's character or capabilities, because that's just wrong. There is solid advice in the old adage to say nothing if you cannot say something good. I am also reminded of some pithy advice from Robert Heinlein's character Lazarus Long about the absolute necessity of maintaining consistent politeness in order to sustain a functioning and loving family, and in the broader sense to maintain a functioning and civil society. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Bob Bridges Sent: Monday, March 27, 2023 9:44 AM Peter! I don't think I've heard from you recently; maybe I just wasn't paying attention until I read this one. I myself dislike COBOL for the very simple and personal reason that it's so WORDY. But even when I had to use it a lot (I was a COBOL developer for about 15 years), I was aware that it's a powerful language with good organizational features for what we used to call top-down programming, and I enjoy sneering (a nasty, superior smirk) at claims that it's a dinosaur and will soon die an unmourned death as other languages supplant it. Not gonna happen, not in my lifetime anyway. Maybe in the Millennium, though I'm doubtful. Not true, though, that it's "not acceptable" to rag on COBOL. Obviously it is. Don't waste your time and energy taking offense; we haven't enough of either to throw about to no benefit. /* When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes. -Erasmus */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Farley, Peter Sent: Monday, March 27, 2023 01:56 I am getting increasingly tired of snide or outright dismissive references to COBOL and by extension to COBOL programmers. Programmers like me. Yes, I am also well versed in HLASM, Rexx, awk and gawk, somewhat facile in SORT (at least as far as knowing and using JOIN's), SQL, JCL and various other z/OS utilities, MetalC, and lately python and bash scripting. I even remember some of the PL/I and Fortran and Pascal I used in college and my early employment days. I even remember some SNOBOL, which I actually got to use productively at a then-major NY bank very early in my career. COBOL pays my bills and keeps my employer operating successfully and profitably. COBOL does NOT rot the brain. Alcohol and various other legal and illegal substances can, in fact, do that. Intelligently devising business solutions to business problems in ANY computer language does NOT rot the brain. It is not funny or acceptable to say so. It never was. -- This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. 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