Thoughts from an outsider

Ramon Leon ramonleon at cox.net
Tue Sep 5 02:40:15 UTC 2006


 > It isn't the "Smalltalk style".  In the early days of open source taking

I disagree, I think it is the Smalltalk style, maybe I'm wrong, but 
that's my opinion.

 > off on
 > the internet everyone thought their code was "self documenting".  And 
that
 > includes C and Perl programmers!
 >
 > You take what I said too personally.  I'm not calling *you*, or Luckas
 > or any
 > of the great developers here liars.  I am attacking this ridiculous
 > concept of
 > "self documenting code".  It became popular with the free software crowd

That you are attacking anything, is what bothered me.  You've used 
strong insulting language from the start, not against me personally, I 
take none of this personally, but against the self documenting style. 
You may not prefer this style, but many do, as we've developed a 
mistrust of documents not directly linked to code.

 > I did use strong language against the concept, but not as strong as some
 > other
 > people much more important then myself in much more public forums.  I

You place great value on documents, OK, great, but not everyone does, no 
need to use such strong language.  You can approach the subject of more 
documentation without being insulting to those who disagree with you. 
Rather than arguing "for" documentation, you seem to be arguing 
"against" less documentation, rather like a creationist arguing 
"against" evolution rather than "for" creationism.

 > figured
 > some people would take it personal and get offended (I actually thought
 > a lot
 > more would) and I wouldn't want that, but sometimes it takes strong 
wording
 > to make someone notice that something is wrong.
 >
 > Anyway, sorry for offending you.  I am very greatful for all the work
 > you and
 > everyone else has done.

Again, I'm not offended, my skin is much thicker than this, I'm simply 
disagreeing with how you approached the subject.





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