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Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > If I described it as "rhetorical" rather than "sarcastic", would you
> > be happier?
> Rhetorical has a different meaning, and one without a connotation of
> ridicule. A sarcastic question and a rhetorical question are two entirely
> different things. It's not a question of whether I'm "happy" or not.
> > You seem rather obsessed with the technical meaning of words.
> Given how often miscommunication seems to happen and upset people, and given
> how often you complain that people aren't taking things the way you meant,
> I'm trying to offer assistance with communicating clearly. My apologies if
> this offended you.
Well, I'll try to remember to use "rhetorical" rather than "sarcastic"
in the future. If playing with words is less likely to make people interpret
things in the worst possible way, it could be worth the effort.
--
- Warp
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On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:32:11 -0400, Warp wrote:
>> Given how often miscommunication seems to happen and upset people, and
>> given how often you complain that people aren't taking things the way
>> you meant, I'm trying to offer assistance with communicating clearly.
>> My apologies if this offended you.
>
> Well, I'll try to remember to use "rhetorical" rather than "sarcastic"
> in the future. If playing with words is less likely to make people
> interpret things in the worst possible way, it could be worth the
> effort.
You've rather completely missed the point that the words have two
entirely different meanings.
Clear communication using the proper words to convey meaning is important
if you want to be understood or to not be misunderstood. You can't just
expect that everyone is going to read things the precise way you meant
them if you use imprecise words.
You also can't expect then for people to be happy and cheery when you
complain that they've misunderstood what you said and accuse them of
intentionally reading things you write "in the worst possible way" (ie,
apparently not the way you intended it).
If a writer doesn't want to be misunderstood, then it's the writer's
responsibility to write clearly enough, and to accept when they haven't
written clearly enough to be understood that they could have chosen a
better way to express themselves.
Jim
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On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:15:46 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>> Mmm. I knew the US has a surprising amount of strange people, I guess
>>> just taking into account the size of the place there must be some
>>> really smart people there too...
>>
>> Indeed there are. I've told you before that it's not a good idea to
>> judge an entire country based on your limited experience in dealing
>> with people who work for the same company you do being based in the US.
>>
>> You'll find we're a pretty diverse group, and some of us are even
>> *gasp* nice! :-)
>
> The part that really puzzles me is that all the best commedians are from
> the USA, and yet... most of the Americans I've met don't seem to possess
> a sense of humour.
You've just met crap Americans, then. ;-)
Most of the people I know over here have a good sense of humour, and many
even understand British humour and think it's funny. ;-)
Jim
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> You also can't expect then for people to be happy and cheery when you
> complain that they've misunderstood what you said and accuse them of
> intentionally reading things you write "in the worst possible way" (ie,
> apparently not the way you intended it).
I don't expect someone who reads my posts for the first time to
immediately understand what I mean if I happen to make a less-than-wise
choice of words.
However, when the same people I have been communicating with for
years do it again and again, and we have had the exact same conversation
like a couple of dozen times, it starts becoming a bit irritating.
I'm not saying I'm not to be blamed. I sometimes do not think with
utmost care how I express things, but there's generally no foul intention
(unless I get trolled, of course). The people here who I have been
communicating for years and years should know this, but this conversation
comes up again and again.
Is it any wonder that I get the feeling that, after all these years,
they are intentionally picking up the worst possible interpretations
to everything?
--
- Warp
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On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:17:33 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> You also can't expect then for people to be happy and cheery when you
>> complain that they've misunderstood what you said and accuse them of
>> intentionally reading things you write "in the worst possible way" (ie,
>> apparently not the way you intended it).
>
> I don't expect someone who reads my posts for the first time to
> immediately understand what I mean if I happen to make a less-than-wise
> choice of words.
Just because we expect you to choose less-than-wise word choices doesn't
mean we'll excuse it. ;-)
> However, when the same people I have been communicating with for
> years do it again and again, and we have had the exact same conversation
> like a couple of dozen times, it starts becoming a bit irritating.
Expecting to keep doing the same thing over and over and get a different
result is one definition of insanity. Perhaps some of us hope that you
might learn from your mistakes and not make then again.
> I'm not saying I'm not to be blamed. I sometimes do not think with
> utmost care how I express things, but there's generally no foul
> intention (unless I get trolled, of course). The people here who I have
> been communicating for years and years should know this, but this
> conversation comes up again and again.
>
> Is it any wonder that I get the feeling that, after all these years,
> they are intentionally picking up the worst possible interpretations to
> everything?
Well, as I said, perhaps you need to look again at how you're expressing
yourself.
Trust me, I take no joy from these arguments, and I frequently hesitate
before writing a response to you because I don't like the way you react
to responses that interpret things differently than the way you intended
them. Yet sometimes you say things that just shouldn't be left to stand
on their own, so what would you have us do? Not point out that you're
not being clear?
Jim
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Warp wrote:
> but there's generally no foul intention
FWIW, I don't take offense at what you said. I was just pointing out that
"sarcasm" didn't mean what you meant. :-)
Give others the benefit of the doubt of not having foul intentions as well,
and things probably go better. It seems from my memory that you're usually
the first one to claim someone else is "intentionally" misunderstanding you.
Maybe "intentionally" isn't the word you mean?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:15:46 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>> The part that really puzzles me is that all the best commedians are from
>> the USA, and yet... most of the Americans I've met don't seem to possess
>> a sense of humour.
>
> You've just met crap Americans, then. ;-)
>
> Most of the people I know over here have a good sense of humour, and many
> even understand British humour and think it's funny. ;-)
I won't even ask if Andrew ever heard of Monthy Python.
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On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:01:47 -0300, nemesis wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:15:46 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>> The part that really puzzles me is that all the best commedians are
>>> from the USA, and yet... most of the Americans I've met don't seem to
>>> possess a sense of humour.
>>
>> You've just met crap Americans, then. ;-)
>>
>> Most of the people I know over here have a good sense of humour, and
>> many even understand British humour and think it's funny. ;-)
>
> I won't even ask if Andrew ever heard of Monthy Python.
LOL, though I'd wager he has. :)
Jim
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Darren New wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>> It is very difficult to write compilers that generate optimized native
>> code as good as the ones already provided by mature C compilers that
>> have been around for ages.
>
> It depends on the language, of course.
Here's a good example. Your CPU supports both decimal arithmetic and
CISC-style opcodes that check array bounds and multiple-dimension-array
calculations. Like, say, the VAX. You want to implement Ada, which
supports both array bounds checking for multiple-dimension arrays and
decimal arithmetic. Those features probably won't be fast if you generate
portable C, since there's no way to express "check the array bounds and
either throw an exception or access the memory depending..." nor is there
any way to say "Add these two strings of BCD digits and give me back a BCD
number" that can compile down to one instruction. In other words, on
machines whose CPUs have been optimized to support what C supports, it's
hard to outrun C. On a machine optimized to support FORTH or Scheme, it's
going to be hard to take a FORTH or Scheme compiler that outputs C and have
it competitive with native code generation for that processor.
Ada also supports natively threads and interrupt handling, neither of which
you can generate C to handle. So some languages simply cannot be translated
to C in any sort of portable way.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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Darren New wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> It is very difficult to write compilers that generate optimized
>>> native code as good as the ones already provided by mature C
>>> compilers that have been around for ages.
>>
>> It depends on the language, of course.
>
> Here's a good example. Your CPU supports both decimal arithmetic and
> CISC-style opcodes that check array bounds and multiple-dimension-array
> calculations. Like, say, the VAX. You want to implement Ada, which
> supports both array bounds checking for multiple-dimension arrays and
> decimal arithmetic. Those features probably won't be fast if you
> generate portable C
/snip/
> Ada also supports natively threads and interrupt handling, neither of
> which you can generate C to handle. So some languages simply cannot be
> translated to C in any sort of portable way.
True. Arrays in Scheme (vectors) are bounds checked. Probably won't
run all that nice on VAX but at least will run, something that possibly
wouldn't happen at all if one was to support optimized native code
generation for all platforms under the sun out there. There were crazy
enough people to do that in the past: C compiler writers. :) We just
reap the benefits...
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