I pondered how to respond to this. Firstly, your examples are not particularly well chosen--except maybe to support your point.

Firstly, the example of "1 + 1 = 3" is so clearly erroneous--real life examples are usually much less clear cut.

But more to the point. There is nothing impolite about "No, one plus one is two."--therefore it is perfectly polite.

The second example, exaggerated for effect I know, is not what I would advocate. In fact, I would read that as condesending?

I thought about posting a few more choice examples (from my persepctive) of the sort of things that you have said in the past. Indeed, I did start plowing through your 4500+ nodes (in reverse reputation order of course:), and picking out those where instead of a simple "No, that's not right." or "No, that's not right because ...", you had chosen to post something along the lines of: <pseudo>

NO! NO! NO! {sigh} Look's like another bad meme I'm going to have stamp down on. Every time this subject comes up, along comes some fool and offers this idiotic piece of cargo-cult code as a solution

That isn't a real example. It's more a composite of bits of several that I turned up in the first couple of hundred posts I read. I don't want to post real links, (though I can supply a few I noted via /msg if you want them) as it serves no purpose to re-hash old ground.

I have to say that beyond learning a couple of new things about Perl, going through those of your posts I did, I think you do get a "bad rap" when it comes to this. I expected to find many more examples than I did. Mostly, I think because I have aquired the feeling that you are a greater offender in this regard than most.

I now think that this impression is probably because as you are a "headline" monk, any transgression on your behalf tends to get inflated out of proportion.

FWIW, I still read everything you write here, and most of what you link to from here. And I can attribute a great deal of whatever little I do know about Perl directly or indirectly to those writings.

As always, I don't agree with some of what you write, but those are mostly matters of opinion rather than those of fact. I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual:)

I have to say that beyond learning a couple of new things about Perl, going through those of your posts I did, I think you do get a "bad rap" when it comes to this. I expected to find many more examples than I did. Mostly, I think because I have aquired the feeling that you are a greater offender in this regard than most.

I now think that this impression is probably because as you are a "headline" monk, any transgression on your behalf tends to get inflated out of proportion.

Thank you! Thank you for doing that and reporting your findings. You're the second (third?) person who has done that, with similar results.

I could only wish that more of my detractors actually examine the record, which is very public. I'll stand behind my record. Yes, there are moments when I spew crap. But the ratio of non-crap to crap might surprise a few people here. {grin}

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

As a footnote, I don't consider myself one of your "detractors". Sure, we've crossed swords a few times, but then I'm an argumentative barsteward and tend to argue my point of view until I've either conveyed it to my satisfaction, or recieve counter-argument that pursuades me to change that POV. Or stalemate.

You've also thrown some fairly strong assertions and language in my direction over time, but that's mostly in the "heat of battle", for which I'm apt to respond in kind, and which is fair game.

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks.

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail
"Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algorithm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon