[erlang-questions] Coon - new tool for building Erlang packages, dependency management and deploying Erlang services

[Fred Hebert]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 10:29 AM, <zxq9@REDACTED> wrote:

> On 2018年2月12日月曜日 10時16分51秒 JST Fred Hebert wrote:
> > Intent does not matter.
>
> No.
>
> Fred, I have enormous respect for you and have gone several rounds with
> you on several subjects, each time having learned something for my own
> part. On technical subjects, anyway.
>
> But... INTENT
>
> You are demonstraby wrong already. Just stop. You will not win against the
> weight of history.
>

I am not wrong in not wanting to ever introduce this library in my god damn
workplace. Because I know and have worked with people who do find this kind
of shit offensive.

I'm happy you live in a place and in a context where everyone is fine with
that. This has not been the reality of the people I have spent time with
both professionally and personally.


>
> This is becoming some SJW ridiculousness already, not because you care
> about that but because of the ambient temperature. I know SJW flippancy is
> not your intent, but that is the only place this winds up going these days.
> That is not a small failure -- it quickly becomes a systemic one, not just
> in a concurrent software system of ephemeral importance, but a concrete
> socio-economic one of critical importance that pays for all the other
> parties we enjoy.
>

I'm surprised that you find the idea that using a term that can very
reasonably be construed as racist is *SJW flippancy*.

Let's take a quick look by looking at first definitions on Urban Dictionary
for a game. I picked random animal names or short terms:

   - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=coon
   Insulting term for a black person
   - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=doggo
   An alternate term for a dog used on meme pages to express the meaning of
   the picture. Usually found in captions.
   - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cat
   The definitive pet.
   - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dog
   Not a cat
   - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fox
   A beautiful and attractive woman
   - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whale
   noun; a wealthy patron to a casino, gets paid special attention by a
   casino host so the patron will feel comfortable to gamble more money.

 Oh hm. Sorry I guess the usage is really forgotten for that one.

*Intent does not matter* is not me saying that the author of the lib is
racist or ill-intended. It's me saying that no matter the original intent,
the consequences will be the result of the reader's interpretation. Look
this is even a principle in literary review called *The death of the author*
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author):

In his essay, Barthes argues against the method of reading and criticism
> that relies on aspects of the author's identity—their political views,
> historical context, religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other biographical
> or personal attributes—to distill meaning from the author's work. In this
> type of criticism, the experiences and biases of the author serve as a
> definitive "explanation" of the text. For Barthes, this method of reading
> may be apparently tidy and convenient but is actually sloppy and flawed:
> "To give a text an author" and assign a single, corresponding
> interpretation to it "is to impose a limit on that text".
>
> [...]
>
> In a well-known quotation, Barthes draws an analogy between text and
> textiles, declaring that a "text is a tissue [or fabric] of quotations",
> drawn from "innumerable centers of culture", rather than from one,
> individual experience. The essential meaning of a work depends on the
> impressions of the reader, rather than the "passions" or "tastes" of the
> writer; "a text's unity lies not in its origins", or its creator, "but in
> its destination", or its audience.
>

The whole point is that you cannot reasonably expect the author to be
around to give meaning and maintain these things. What the author intends
is not relevant in the long run because the interpretation can get away
from it. It's like in satire: good satire/irony/sarcasm must be visible and
enough in your face that it won't be construed as supporting the system you
are attempting to criticize.

Intent does not matter.



> Riddle me this:
> If we cannot undersand enough about the software systems that WE WRITE
> OURSELVES that we need the "let it crash" mentality, how is it that we
> somehow understand to a manifest degree the economic and social value
> systems (which are profoundly more complex than our petty software systems)
> that we can dictate value within them? By what restart mechanism is this
> all brought back to a "reasonble default"?
>
> I am sincerely desirous of an answer here, because I have a profound
> respect for your intellect but cannot imagine that you have properly
> considered the alternatives or where this path of discourse winds up
> eventualy going.
>

I very much stand by *intent does not matter*. It matters to me in this
context and I do not yet judge Valery negatively, I trust that *raccoon*
was indeed the original name intent. It does not mean that other people
will do the same. Expecting other people to do the same is downright absurd
and foolish. If your entire position relies on explaining every single
person the origin of the name for things to go well, you have taken the
losing battle of tilting at windmills. This is the hill you die on. What
I'm doing here is giving a really fucking serious warning of how much
windmill tilting you'll get into.

If you want me to go by the *Let it Crash* maxim, the idea of *let it crash*
is to not try to handle all the errors and letting them fail early and
often. Start from a clean slate rather than trying to correct corrupted
state. What I'm doing here is trying to crash this stupid ass project name
as early as possible so the author doesn't get stuck trying to handle every
error coming their way in the near future. Look at it this way. You even
have a bunch of terms for it in this single thread: *SJW Flippancy.* Loic
brought up *identity politics*. Roman is trying make a tally of who is it
who's offended in the first place as if that made any difference the moment
this gets out of here.

If you can't see that as a warning sign when this discussion is taking
place within mailing list regulars, what will be a reasonable waning sign
to you?
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