Re: Just one more anecdote

dawn wrote:
> Marshall Spight wrote:
>
> > This explanation advances a recurring theme in your posts,
>
> yes, it is the area I'm wrestling with, but could do less of it in
> public

Why not? As you say below, dialog is good.

> > hence
> > David's hilarious "is the axe sharp enough" comment.
>
> And somehow I didn't laugh. Call me stupid or ignorant and I can agree
> that I can be and laugh it off, but call me angry or bitter and I can't
> figure out how my writing would portray someone so unlike me.

That's kind of odd, because I see anger and (modest amounts of) bitterness as entirely normal parts of the human condition, whereas ignorance and stupidity are studiously to be avoided.

> I get
> this self-doubt thing going -- "do I have an axe to grind?" -- I am not
> conscious of one, so is there something in my subconscious, and on and
> on and on.

Well, you certainly have an agenda, a theme, a motif even. So do most people here. Pretty much everyone here does. Neo's got his thing with dynamic structure; I'm into the algebra and language design stuff, Jan likes the XML-family and query optimization, Mikito likes the math, etc. etc. Remember BB? He had a motif; it was "you suck." (For arbitrary values of "you.")

Your recurring theme is limitations of SQL and the RM, and how more flexibility has an advantage in change management. Oh, and also the "how humans think" thing.

So, like, own it. Or drop it, or whatever. But if I may offer some advice, don't try to both have it and not have it, because that's not going to get you anywhere.

> > Point David.
>
> Yup, and for figuring out how to push my buttons

Ahem. Well, perhaps his remark strayed into that territory. But then, I know this other person, who I still like and respect, and she goes to this one newsgroup that's mostly full of SQL/RM people and likes to talk about how SQL has all these problems and the RM should be dismantled and replaced with something altogether different.

Now, I don't think she's trolling or anything; she clearly believes the positions she puts forward. But I've seen her long enough to know that she knows just what she's doing when she drops one of her real zingers in there. Why, just the other day she casually referred to a project moving to a SQL database as "downgrading."

Okay, so she was trying to push some buttons. Big deal! She's still informed, thoughtful, (mostly) articulate, and well within polite society. Anyone who meets those criteria (which precludes the "you suck" theme, by the way) is okay in my book.

> > Hurray! Everyone loses!
>
> You mean wins, right?

If you'd seen how my last couple of days have been, you'd see why I've kinda got a "lose-lose" sort of vibe going.

> I completely agree. The full reasons for anything in history are
> unknowable, but we can speculate and discuss.

Agreed. That's the fun of newsgroups!

> Yes, and a dialog is good if you want to find more pieces of the
> puzzle.

Viva la dialog! At the end you either change your mind or you learn that much better why you think what you think. Either outcome is excellent.

Marshall Received on Fri Jul 29 2005 - 06:35:08 CEST