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

[Michael L Martin]

Spot on, Fred. I concur with every point.


On 2018-02-12 10:46 AM, Fred Hebert wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 10:29 AM, <zxq9@REDACTED 
> <mailto: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
>     <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=coon>
>     Insulting term for a black person
>   * https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=doggo
>     <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
>     <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cat>
>     The definitive pet.
>   * https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dog
>     <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dog>
>     Not a cat
>   * https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fox
>     <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fox>
>     A beautiful and attractive woman
>   * https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whale
>     <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 
> <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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