Re: To Bob Badour, sorry

From: x <x_at_not-exists.org>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:42:39 +0300
Message-ID: <e794q1$l3d$1_at_nntp.aioe.org>


"Tony D" <tonyisyourpal_at_netscape.net> wrote in message news:1150769801.591023.296850_at_b68g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I didn't get round to answering this before; apologies.
>
> x wrote:

> > > Sometimes, you just have to call a spade a spade.
> >
> > And often not.
> >

> Indeed, often not. Most of the time, you can discuss things pleasantly,
> and bring the discussion to a close with everyone understanding the
> others point of view, and if necessary changing their opinion on
> something.

It is funny.
I looked at the definiton of spade in an english dictionary and I saw a different definition on spade that the one I would have expected. To me spade was a kind of sword.
I thought we always should call a spade a spade or at least to try our best.

> > Who's pushing you to do that ? :-)

> Sometimes, no amount of discussion will resolve a debate, especially if
> one of those taking part insists on refusing to accept overwhelming
> evidence or simple facts that contradict their position.

>In those
> instances, you simply have to resort to plain language ("calling a
> spade a spade").

"calling a spade a spade" means to speak things as they are, or so I was reading somewhere.

> > >Sometimes admittedly
> > > Bob will call it a bloody spade, and get rather exasperated that
> > > someone still hasn't grasped the concept of "spadeness" and wants to
> > > talk lots and lots about how they want to rename shovels as spades and
> > > can't see what the problem with that is and hey I've been successful
> > > with projects by using shovels and calling them spades and I've been
> > > earning decent money since nineteen-canteen using shovels as spades
and
> > > the difference between a shovel and a spade is only of interest to
> > > those theory guys and ... and .. and ...
> >
> > Maybe they were just talking about different things ...
> >

> Often not; if you replace "spade" with "relational DBMS" and "shovel"
> with "SQL DBMS" in what I wrote above, hopefully you'll see what I was
> talking about.

I see.

> > > Maybe he understood them better than you think ?
> >
> > Or maybe not, 'cause he has not shown that.
> >

> Sometimes, you just recognise the same argument or debate coming up
> worded in a slightly different way. Or sometimes, someone believes they
> have a major insight that others have already tried and discounted. And
> sometimes, the major insight is simply irrelevant to the discussion at
> hand. (For example, I really don't care about RAM controllers; and when
> I get to see a process space on a Unix machine, I see a huge long flat
> chunk of memory, with no additional structure to it. So how an MMU
> deals with physical memory to present that big flat contiguous space is
> simply irrelevant and uninteresting to me.)

Ok. That patterns are called cliche

> > 0x2B | 0x2B that's the question.
> >

> Shouldn't there be a ! in there somewhere ? ;)

Yes. Do you know the result ?

a) 0|~0
b) 0xFF
c) none of the above
d) all of the above

> > If someone turns up it will be turned down.
> >
>
> I used "turns up" in the sense of "arrives", if that changes how you
> understand what I wrote. Too colloquial of me.
>
> > http://romania.ido.ro/tornero-lyrics-6/
> >
> > Garcon! Another turn!
> >

> You didn't watch Eurononsense this year, did you ? I lost interest when
> the Poles didn't get into the final ... the big guy rapping was a star
> in the making :)

No. I didn't.

> > >If someone turns up asking leading questions
> >
> > What's a leading question ? A heavy one ?
> >

> A question that is asked in such a way that the person asking it gets
> the answer they want. In law, a leading question guides a witness
> towards a particular answer, and is therefore expressly forbidden.

Ok. I'm not a lawyer. Thanks.

> > >or pushing an
> > > opinion or pursuing an agenda whilst simultaneously repeating over and
> > > over that they're just asking questions and would like to understand,
> > > well they can expect to get called on that. Reasonably enough. And if
> > > it goes on over an extended period, anyone's patience wears out.
> >
> > Who's agenda ?

> A private agenda that is different to the public one. For example,
> publicly "I want to understand the relational model", but privately (or
> not-so-publicly) "I think we should really ditch the relational model".

Thank you for taking the time to write. Received on Tue Jun 20 2006 - 17:42:39 CEST

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