Invisible wrote:
> Tell me, how many Holy Wars have you seen fought over whether strawberry 
> icecream is better or worse than chocolate icecream? Uh, none.

But how many Holy Wars have been fought over which invisible friend is more 
real?  How many Holy Wars have been fought over whether the brother of the 
friend of the invisible friend was more right than the pupil of the friend 
of the invisible man?  Europe is covered in statues celebrating the 
beheading of people for not believing *this* man was better friends with his 
delusions than *that* man.

In other words, you understand that "Holy War" is a mocking reference, 
right? Anyone who calls it a Holy War already understands this?


> Nobody *cares* what you think is the best icecream, because everybody realises 
> that IT DOESN'T MATTER. 

This isn't true. It doesn't matter because there's enough of each person 
eating each flavor that there's no risk that flavor will become unavailable 
in the future.

The people screaming "Language X is best!" are the people who really like X 
and who want to work with it in their next job, but who are afraid it won't 
be available to them because other technical or management people will 
decide against it on reasons of popularity. (How often I've heard "We can't 
use utterly appropriate language X because it's too hard to find programmers 
that know it, so let's use POS Y that has taken over the world due to 
historical and irrelevant reasons.)

> As far as I'm aware, no mechanic actually 
> gives a **** about the difference. 

Of course they do. They don't fight over it because the tool is simple. 
Imagine whether a professional race car driver could argue over the merits 
of air-cooled turbo injection versus water-cooled turbo injection. The car 
is just a tool for the driver, after all.

> What you *do* sometimes see is wars fought over styles and fashions. 

Because, again, this is enforcing your choices on someone else. People 
aren't arguing over the utility. They're arguing over whether you should 
follow their fashion or vice versa. The fashion doesn't matter - what 
matters is who the third parties will see as more fashionable.

Bloods vs Crypts is tribal stuff, not fashion.

> Stuff like the Mods vs the Rockers. 

I assume that's the UK version of Bloods vs Crypts?

> 2. Some programming languages definitely *are* "better" than others, in 
> an objective way.
> 
> For example, take BASIC. [...] The 1980s was a decade of 8-bit home computers 
> running BASIC. It's a great language for non-experts

You just obviated your own claim here. Do you want to teach first-year 
programming in BASIC on a 8-bit computer, or C++? Objectively, BASIC is 
better for that, and indeed that's exactly BASIC's target audience.

> Determining which programming language is superior requires real insight 
> and intelligence. And if you fail to see why one language is better than 
> another, basically that means that YOU'RE STUPID.

And now you understand all the other Holy Wars too. ;-)

> Truth is, if you compare almost any pair of complex objects, usually one 
> is so clearly superior to the other that there's nothing to argue about, 

Except, you know, Holy stuff.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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