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

[Antonio SJ Musumeci]

"These little skirmishes over the meanings of words should not be taken too
seriously but more as a symptom that the tools we use to communicate are
crap and we need to invent better tools."

While I entirely agree that communication via computer is seriously lacking
relative to other forms that is not what the issue was here. This was an
emotional, ideological, and political skirmish. The semantic argument was
the catalyst. Unfortunately no form of communication has yet made the
former noticeably better or easier.

Some individuals made exaggerated / invalid / incomplete claims on the
meaning of a word. Others tried to correct them. This should be an
dispassionate and simple problem to solve. The historical and current
meanings and uses are easily found and should not be up for debate.
Anecdotal evidence can be useful to provide nuance. Severity, optics, etc.
can debated but those arguments were mixed in with unfounded statements and
accusations on "both sides." Those were clearly coming from the ideological
backgrounds and experiences of those posting them. Would they have
responded differently in person? Understood one another better? Maybe. In
my experience, in today's political atmosphere in the USA, I've seen people
fly off the handle for completely innocent things. Individual's  career
paths ruined and friendships ended because someone assumed X about person Y
and no effort was put into at least agreeing on what was said, done, or
believed. Calling someone a racist, directly or indirectly; purposefully or
not, because they think the use of a word is more nuanced then other's
believe or that defending one's right to use such a word means they have a
desire to have racist words used is has nothing to do with communication
channel inefficiencies. Just as accusing people of being SJWs or overly
sensitive isn't. Those are personal attacks & ad hominems which should have
no place here (and even if true has nothing to do with the core topic). If
people generally agree on the "marketing" comments made... for all those
attacking one another... it's "bad marketing" of your ideas to attack
individuals and make unsubstantiated claims regarding their beliefs or
intents. Most respond rather poorly to such things and even if you're on
the "right side" your language and behavior will likely turnoff those who
don't already hold a strong position. This is "debate 101" kind of stuff.

Unrelated to the above but perhaps interesting to those who were following
this thread... regarding the paradox of tolerance. It could have been the
inefficiencies of the communication medium but it appeared that it may not
have been fully quoted and understood.

Popper's statement, when read in full, is a comment on when one must be
"intolerant" in order to save a tolerant system. It would fit the classical
liberal position of free speech absolution if 'tolerance' is understood in
that sense but he's a bit more vague. As with his "paradox of freedom" he
is using extremely generous / non-specific interpretations of "freedom" and
"tolerance." In a way that IMO only an extreme pacifist would use. Which is
useful in the sense that he wasn't adding hidden meaning to these words but
at the same time is contrary to how many think of them. This extremely
literal usage is not the classical liberal interpretations of those
words.This semantic distinction might seem pedantic but is useful in
understanding what is being said.

* tolerance: the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in
particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not
necessarily agree with.

* tolerate: allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of without
interference

To disagree, debate, or argue against something is not to be intolerant.
That's not "interference." Interference, in the classical liberal sense,
would refer to legal or extralegal, non-voluntary intervention. One could
use it to mean private intervention. Kicking someone off a mailinglist for
doing or saying something the moderators disagree with would technically be
"intolerant" but in the philosophical sense that's not what is meant. At
least not within the confines of the classical liberal rule set. While
Popper is using a definition without classical liberal qualifiers he was a
social liberal (which has roots in classical liberalism) and given the
statement's reference to "fists or pistols" and suggesting it'd be "unwise"
to suppress intolerant philosophies so long as they can continue to be
argued against and kept "in check by public opinion" there is good evidence
to believe this is more or less a rewording of previous free speech
absolutist positions. Also it should be noted that the statement comes from
a footnote. The consideration to be intolerant was made out-of-band from
his main point and seemed to have been made with hesitation.

I bring this up to hopefully provide insight and clarity but also to point
out that for those of us in the USA the position on free speech absolution,
while diminished relative to times past, is still strongly held and
ingrained in our law. Many will want to err on the side of tolerance and
open dialog. For those within and without the US it'd be good to remember
that the USA is unique in the world in this regard and has been hotly
debated for hundreds of years. When arguing in and around this topic this
should be kept in mind. We have different definitions for some of these
words which are easy to take for granted and overlook. Another thing to
keep in mind is that smarter people than all of us have probably debated
all this before and while fun to do it ourselves it might be better to go
off and read those who did so already. It could save a lot of keyboard
strokes and limit the number of aggravated individuals. In the least such
topics be held in more appropriate forums? Since we've almost certainly
drowned out the technical discussions... may I suggest starting a new
thread?

+1 for "trash panda" w/ a shortened tool name "tp" :)


On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 9:46 AM, Joe Armstrong <erlang@REDACTED> wrote:

> Just another thought...
>
> There seems to be the idea that in some sense people's freedom is being
> limited because various ways of behaving in the past are no longer
> acceptable.
>
> The Internet has changed how we interact, and we are performing a huge
> experiment on billions of people, without knowing what will happen.
>
> When I was a kid - there was no Internet and no computers - if we were
> bored
> we'd go into the garden and paint some stones or eat a few worms or
> something.
>
> The only people we interacted with, apart from adults, were the local kids
> and the kids at school. All interaction was verbal and face-to-face.
>
> If you offended somebody there was immediate feedback, they might cry
> (if they were smaller than you) or thump you (if they were bigger) -
> the point being was
> that there was immediate feedback and you knew if you'd annoyed somebody.
>
> Fast forward 60 odd years and now we communicate with an unknown number of
> people who are brought up in different continents and in different
> cultures.
>
> So of course, we have zero idea of how what we write is received, and
> feedback is
> slow or non-existent.
>
> We have replaced high band-width one-to-one face-on communication with a
> small
> number of people with low band-width one-to-many communication with a
> large number
> of people.
>
> I have seen large numbers of e-mail conflicts in mailing groups that I
> believe just
> would not have happened in a face-to-face context. This is a consequence of
> restricting the band-width and locality of our communication.
>
> I don't believe that people are any better or any worse than they were
> 50 years ago before
> the Internet, nor that things are getting worse. The ability to
> communicate directly
> with people from different cultures is great, we need to do this to
> solve our common problems.
>
> Writing accurately and saying exactly what you mean to a mixed
> audience is incredibly
> hard, talking face-to-face is far easier because of the immediate feedback.
>
> The immediacy of instant messaging and email is also changing our
> communication
> in ways we do not yet understand.
>
> When I sent letters to people before the Internet I did not expect an
> immediate reply.
> When I replied to a letter I could reflect over the text for a few
> weeks, many ill-considered letters
> got ripped up the day after and not sent - why waste a good stamp and
> walk to the post office?
>
> I don't think we've figured out how to use the Internet in a sensible
> way yet - we're in
> what historians in the future will cause "the age of Internet confusion"
>
> These little skirmishes over the meanings of words should not be taken
> too seriously
> but more as a symptom that the tools we use to communicate are crap
> and we need to
> invent better tools.
>
> It will be interesting to see how these things evolve - Personally I
> have turned off
> all notifications on my phone and computer - I check mail/messages
> now-and-then when I decide
> not when my computer decides.
>
> This is why I missed a telephone conference the day before yesterday -
> I forgot - yes forgot -
> that old fashioned thing that means that I am in control and not my
> computer.
>
> Have a nice day
>
> /Joe
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 2:05 PM, Joe Armstrong <erlang@REDACTED> wrote:
> > It seems like several arguments have gotten mixed into each other.
> >
> > 1) is how to choose a name that does not offend people.
> >
> > A quick Google search said that that the Oxford English dictionary
> > lists 171 K words - how many of these are offensive - I have no idea -
> but
> > if you Google "<word>" + offensive and get zero hits it's probably OK.
> >
> > A normal person has a working vocabulary of about 10K words (this is
> somebody
> > with a rather good knowledge of English) - assume ALL of these are
> offensive
> > (they are not but never mind) - that leave c. 160K words that are
> probably OK
> >
> > Take two words and string them together (for example, "green-coffee")
> > probably OK since there are 160K^2 combinations you cannot argue that
> > it is difficult to make up new words. ("Red hat" did this and the name
> > seemed to have worked - I don't think it offended anybody, it has a
> > nice logo, and is memorable).
> >
> > 2) Does the individual have the right to use any old word they feel like
> > even though it might offend someone?
> >
> > The answer is -  yes but ... it depends...
> >
> > In some countries blasphemy is punishable by death.
> > In some countries being nasty about the rulers is a crime.
> >
> > If you offend people it will have consequences - you might not know
> > that you have offended people but it will have consequences - once you
> > become aware of the consequences you will have to decide what to do
> > about it.
> >
> >    - You can change the name
> >    - You can do nothing
> >    - You can stick to the original name
> >
> > You will not know in advance the consequences of making one of the
> > three choices, but you might make an intelligent guess or ask people
> > for guidance if it is a foreign culture.
> >
> > Personally I would be appalled if a program I wrote was being discussed
> > because the name of the program was the main reason to discuss the
> > program and not the merits or deficiencies of the program. I would
> > immediately change the name - but that's me.
> >
> > personally I think we should celebrate the fact that there are
> > 14,609 repositories on Git hub.
> >
> > The fact that one of them has attracted a lot of publicity should not
> > detract from either the community or the other 14,608 repositories.
> >
> > 3) Is the language going to be diminished if we stop using certain words
> >
> > No of course not - people are inventing new words all the time - words
> going
> > in and out of fashion has always happened.
> >
> > I'd rather be known as the inventor of a splendid new word than as a
> > defender of the right of people to use old words whose 'best use
> > before date' has expired.
> >
> > If you hear a public figure using a controversial word that causes a
> > storm of protest (this happens now and then, you can possibly think of
> > an example of this) my immediate thought is "What don't they want us
> > to be talking about."
> >
> > Words elicit reactions - so it's good idea to know what they mean:
> >
> >    'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone,
> >    'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
> >
> >    'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so
> >     many different things.'
> >
> >     - "Through the Looking Glass", Lewis Carroll
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > /Joe
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 11:49 AM, Karlo Kuna <kuna.prime@REDACTED>
> wrote:
> >> it seems to me that the main problem is growth of classification of
> acts as
> >> offensive in general.
> >> what i mean is that in digital and (archive all) age it seems that
> number of
> >> acts (words, expressions etc.) that are viewed as offensive only grows
> in
> >> time, and
> >> they *do not* die out. given multinational context it seems to be the
> truth
> >> even more so.
> >> not dying out is the biggest problem. it is easy to make something
> offensive
> >> but is is very hard to emancipate the same thing  back to benign and
> >> in most cases original meaning.
> >>
> >> moral dilemma is should we police others or should we first police our
> own
> >> reactions? should i be offended regardless of context or should others
> make
> >> sure that i don't have to consider context?
> >>
> >> should one use coon or be offended by it? with context "raccoon"
> >> should one use cowboy of be offended by it? with context "genocide"
> >>
> >> here i must stress out that in case of cowboy intended context was
> actually
> >> bound to tech world and i don't in any shape or form believe that author
> >> was implying otherwise. but as cruel as it sounds context *is* derived
> from
> >> historical fact packaged in perception of entertainment in less
> developed
> >> times
> >> (cartoons and etc.).
> >>
> >> this leads me following problems:
> >> 1) how do we emancipate back words, and acts in general
> >> 2) how much time should one spend in analyzing words and acts to deem
> them
> >> acceptable
> >>
> >> for one i think this thread is great because it gives author and
> community
> >> time for consideration and action before product is widely spread
> >>
> >> we should be kind, but also we need to be more resilient!
> >>
> >> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 4:06 AM, Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
> >> <mahesh@REDACTED> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Naming and Branding are not complicated things. Oh, doing it *well* can
> >>> take any amount of time and effort, but the basics are very *very*
> >>> straightforward. Here are two excellent example
> >>>    -
> >>> https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2017/10/26/
> before-naming-your-startup-read-this/
> >>>    - https://landor.com/thinking/how-not-to-name
> >>>
> >>> It really is not terribly different from software development
> >>> 1) Identify the requirements for the name
> >>>    - What kind of name is it? (made-up word? an experience? etc.)
> >>>    - What are you trying to accomplish with the name?
> >>>    - What is your target market?
> >>>    - What are your evaluation criteria?
> >>>    - etc.
> >>> 2) Generate a bunch-a example names based on the above
> >>> 3) Test these names thoroughly
> >>>    - Does it sound good? In the target markets?
> >>>    - Will it get misinterpreted?
> >>>    - Is it confusing?
> >>>    - etc.
> >>> 4) Deploy to production
> >>>    - Update docs
> >>>    - Send out emails
> >>>    - etc.
> >>>
> >>> In the world of Marketing, there is an entire sub-genre of Naming /
> >>> Branding.  It exists because, despite the fondest beliefs of the
> tech-world,
> >>> Excellence does *not* win out, if you build it they *don't* come, and
> just
> >>> making yourself heard in the din of the marketplace is frightfully
> hard.
> >>>
> >>> The tech world is particularly replete with the Dunning-Kruger effect -
> >>> and this is rarely more apparent than when we talk about Marketing &
> Sales
> >>> (admit it - as you read "Marketing & Sales", you mentally added a
> sarcastic
> >>> tone to it, didn't you?).
> >>> Sales is *hard*. Do *you* have the ego-less-ness to do cold-calling?
> The
> >>> stamina to repeat the same sales-pitch over and over and *OVER* again?
> >>> And Marketing, well, it's just about the same - those sales funnels
> don't
> >>> fill themselves.
> >>>
> >>> Which brings me back to Naming/Branding - and the process that I
> described
> >>> above. Right up front, in the requirements for the name, you should be
> >>> making sure that it isn't offensive. (Or, maybe you're a white
> supremacist
> >>> group, and *want* to be offensive! Whatever). Thing is, these are
> >>> table-stakes in any brand-exercise - to the point where not doing this
> is
> >>> usually an actionable offense.
> >>> To Jesper's point - of course the meaning of the brand-name can change.
> >>> And it doesn't have to be around names like "Darkie Toothpaste" (yes,
> that
> >>> was a thing) - pity the manufacturer of "ISIS Chocolates", who were
> >>> overtaken by world events. Hence the existence of the field of Brand
> >>> Management, and nowadays Brand Safety.
> >>>
> >>> Yes, this is all a bit more than "Pick a name, and run with it". But
> hey,
> >>> the world isn't what it used to be. 30 years ago, I could fix most
> anything
> >>> that 'sploded in my car with the tools I had in my garage - nowadays,
> not so
> >>> much.
> >>> Does this mean that we should al study up on marketing, or pay for
> brand
> >>> management, or whatever?  Not at all. It does, however, mean that we
> should,
> >>> at the very least, be aware that these things exist, and act
> appropriately.
> >>>
> >>> Last of all, regarding the "I shouldn't have to do this" argument - of
> >>> course you don't have to do this. It just depends on what you're
> trying to
> >>> get out of the marketplace - the sad truth is that the better mousetrap
> >>> doesn't always win out.  The problem is that
> >>>    - A poor name can nuke all the work that you've done, and all the
> >>> goodwill that you've built
> >>>    - At best you're going to have to spend time, energy, and money to
> >>> educate the market about your product's value. Headwinds do *not* help
> -
> >>> you'll be fighting in the market against al the competition that
> doesn't
> >>> have those headwinds, and, well, is your product that much better that
> the
> >>> headwinds don't matter?
> >>>    - You get but one chance to make a first impression, and the
> product's
> >>> name is, usually, that first impression.  Be aware of this in the
> markets
> >>> that you are targeting....
> >>>
> >>> Cheers
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
> >>> That tall bald Indian guy..
> >>> Twitter |
> >>> Blog |
> >>> G+
> >>>  |
> >>> LinkedIn
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 9:19 PM, Jesper Louis Andersen
> >>> <jesper.louis.andersen@REDACTED> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 4:41 PM Fred Hebert <mononcqc@REDACTED> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It is very possible. This mailing list is full of folks boasting of
> >>>>> writing systems that run on hundreds or thousands of nodes and
> handle more
> >>>>> load than anything else out there with amazing uptime figures And
> somehow,
> >>>>> nobody can be assed to just look up words in a search engine or use
> the link
> >>>>> Mahesh posted that is meant just for that?
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> This is good advice. I'll just add you need to keep redoing your
> search
> >>>> as the list of bad words tend to change over time. So a word which is
> >>>> perfect now can be "illegal" tomorrow. However, the risk of words
> changing
> >>>> behind your back is much smaller. It can be literal hell for a brand
> if it
> >>>> gets caught in such a fistfight.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> erlang-questions mailing list
> >>>> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> >>>> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
> >>> That tall bald Indian guy..
> >>> Twitter |
> >>> Blog |
> >>> G+
> >>>  |
> >>> LinkedIn
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> erlang-questions mailing list
> >>> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> >>> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> erlang-questions mailing list
> >> erlang-questions@REDACTED
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> >>
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