There is a feeling in the forum of growing annoyance, anger, contempt, whatever between some of the big gun forum staff / members when replying to some recent posts.What has given you that impression ?
"your answer is stupid", "my answer is far better", "why use that code ?", "my c*ck is bigger than your c*ck" etc.
I do agree with Zath that there are a few members who tend to respond in an arrogant or even insulting way. But I also agree with 440bx that this is a very small minority.I also agree.
I do agree with Zath that there are a few members who tend to respond in an arrogant or even insulting way. But I also agree with 440bx that this is a very small minority.I also agree.
Some developers stopped involving in contributing code because of that. Some of them didn't even opened a github account, which means that they won't even report bugs.
I always had the impression that many members on the forum enjoy the slightly more relaxed moderation approach.I just wanted to say that I personally enjoy the relaxed moderation approach.
And so, a recently heard joke.
A group of programmers, after years of work, finally completed their large language model AI and gathered to decide the very first question they would put to their system. After much argument, they finally made their choice, went to the console and typed in "Is there a God?"
A few seconds later, the answer, clRed in bold 24 point Times New Roman, scrolled across their screen: "There is now!"
"Is there a God?"
I do agree with Zath that there are a few members who tend to respond in an arrogant or even insulting way. But I also agree with 440bx that this is a very small minority.
Forum implosion
There is a feeling in the forum of growing annoyance, anger, contempt, whatever between some of the big gun forum staff / members when replying to some recent posts.
Just to keep things in perspective. I think its fair to say that one user is responsible for a quite large percentage of the troubling posts. That person has a very solid depth of knowledge and has at one time or another helped a large number of people here.
But recently, several of his posts are just plain wrong in technical sense and for that person to make such mistakes, well, it would seem to me that there is some underlying problem.
Maybe a bit of tolerance, in the short term, is indicated ? Short term only ....
Some of them didn't even opened a github account, which means that they won't even report bugs.
I'm one of the objectors here, but my grouch is not so much the core team's insistence on Git for project management- a role for which it appears well suited- but the loss of the revision number which gave interested-but-not-core members of the community a useful reference point.
I obviously know that the developers have gone to a great deal of trouble to sort out revision numbers for pre-transition stuff, but there is absolutely no way that Git-style non-sequential hashes are a useful replacement.
It is btw important to separate 3 things: GIT vs SVN vs maintenance of either. The last one was the main issue.
I suppose that this emphasises the extent to which effective use of Subversion mandates something like Mantis to hold candidate patches: leaving aside branches and tags it's effectively presenting a two-dimensioned fabric where one axis is the continuum of Subversion revision numbers and the other is a sequence of patches extracted from Mantis and applied against a given revision.
Strictly moderated forums often turn into a narrow minded echo chamber. They tend not to like people who figure things out for themselves.
But still the fact remains that the revnr says *something* about the timeline, while the hash doesn't without tools, scripts or a large number of clicks on a laggy website.
Strictly moderated forums often turn into a narrow minded echo chamber. They tend not to like people who figure things out for themselves.
Indeed. But having experienced members who are able to don a moderatorial hat on occasion can prevent a valuable contributor from forming the conviction that he's being victimised.
On occasion, one does have to put one's foot down with a firm hand. But in that context having strong on-topic expertise helps: as much friction can be averted by telling a newbie that what he's asking for is unrealistic (but perhaps he should consider /this/ approach) as by telling a short-tempered elder to leave off.
And it's sometimes also necessary to tell somebody who continually makes ill-informed suggestions simply because he likes the sound of his own voice to shut up. And many forums have the problem that privilege is earned more by message count than by acclamation.
MarkMLl
....Joanna, its not a good idea. Lets drop it.
I’m curious who this thread is referring To. Can someone please pm me the details? I want to read the posts.
Forming sub-groups in which then the behaviour of others is discussed behind those others backs => that is definitely a bad thing.Most definitely! Highly undesirable.
Can't help but agreeing, definitely not a good idea.....Joanna, its not a good idea. Lets drop it.
I’m curious who this thread is referring To. Can someone please pm me the details? I want to read the posts.
We all agree, saying anything on a forum you would not say face to face is wrong.
==8<--[tangent]Diamond is a thermodynamically unstable allotrope of carbon at standard conditions?[/tangent]
Otherwise, no one can understand the difference between diamond and coal.
[tangent]Diamond is a thermodynamically unstable allotrope of carbon at standard conditions?[/tangent]Yes, if you look at things through the eyes of matter, you will only see this.
I think that many of us are beginning to feel- or at least exhibit- our age, and increasingly I see our perhaps excessive devotion to the Pascal language as being a problem in itself.
Dude my post like just imploded what happened guys?
It was here just now look
Is something wrong guys
Yes. This is not the QAnon forum, here you are supposed to behave and not post offensive phrases or discriminative slurs.
I’m curious who this thread is referring to.
big gun forum staff / membersThe O.P. used the plural, so more than one of us.
Yes, the OP did use the plural but, at least in my mind, only one person comes to mind who has some tendency to get on other people's case a bit too easily (in my opinion.)Quotebig gun forum staff / membersThe O.P. used the plural, so more than one of us.
So am I one of these, or maybe its You, or You, or You, or You ...
How far down the rabbit hole are we going..?I seriously doubt it will go far; again, IMO, neither the forum members nor the moderators are keen to let that happen.
This is getting out of hand, if someone cannot express their thoughts and opinions (as long as its in the guidelines of the forum);no matter what the subject, then we are walking a very thin line.It isn't about not being able to express one's thoughts and/or opinions, it's about there not being a good reason to get on someone's case, not to mention the "stones and glass house" situation.
If you feel offended, upset by anyone's comment then inform them in the topic your offended in; or maybe pm them.I think that's a good suggestion, one the OP should have put in practice (maybe he did but felt that a public thread on the topic was warranted...)
This toxic topic alone is making me think twice about participating in the forum.It would be toxic to raise this problem, which is currently minuscule, to unwarranted levels.
We are a race of diverse people, with vastly varying personalities, skill sets, knowledge and traits. We have to co-exist with all of them, whether its ADHD, Coprolalia, Hung Over, Bad Hair Day or that is the way they are.Definitely. That's why it's important not to sweat the little things, just get a different shampoo.
Please relax moderators.
A title like "Forum Implosion" is nonsense. I have been lurking this forum for years and there is no systemic problem with this forum.
I understand that if you moderate a forum that criticisms about your ability are taken seriously.
So that may explain my rather strange wordings.A moderator is always bitten by booth :-) Relax, moderator is known to be an unwanted, but nesseray job.
Since I don't really give a damn anymore, I'm going to be the one who says this.
This is hardly the first time that I've seen a forum disrupted when somebody uses it to push a social, religious or political agenda (not that there's much distinction) or promote a favourite product or service. Sometimes the perpetrator's initial messages demonstrate familiarity with the topic, sometimes they don't: but in almost all cases they result in a veering away from what I might refer to as the forum's charter, and rarely in a good way.
And everybody knows who I'm referring to.
That's not the only thing that's gone wrong here. As I wrote yesterday, I think that many of us are beginning to feel- or at least exhibit- our age, and increasingly I see our perhaps excessive devotion to the Pascal language as being a problem in itself.
MarkMLl
One person is not the forum itself.
And i am reading a lot of threads and i find the speach here is ok. And yes sometimes it is more rude but not so problematic. For me all is ok here and it is not a "Forum implosion", thats a normal up and down.
But only my 2 cents
Please relax moderators.
A title like "Forum Implosion" is nonsense. I have been lurking this forum for years and there is no systemic problem with this forum.
I understand that if you moderate a forum that criticisms about your ability are taken seriously.
Nothing to see here.
No need to worry.
The worst is the Pascal implosion
I did at no point take this as criticism on any of us moderators (at least not in a negative way). And from my knowledge of the team, I would think neither would any one else.
Besides that criticism (positive and negative) is a good thing, and welcome.
I am also glad to hear from different people how they perceive what is going on, and if or how it affects them.
Doesn't this happen with other programming languages? Currently, it is common for huge numbers of people to attach themselves to a "certain" language that is not an extraordinary solution (quite the contrary). It's the same with others languages. So maybe it's a feature of humans as a species, and not some particular flaw of the participants of this forum?
If someone who has nothing to do with pascal posts the same sort of text it’s a troll who should be shown the door. It’s all about context..
...
Personally I’m very much against people who admonish someone asking a question With rtfm.
As far as telling someone to RTFM, I think that is appropriate only _after_ that someone has asked more than one question that is known to always be addressed in the appropriate manual(s).
Answering a question is not just for the benefit of the person asking, it keeps forums and irc channels active and invites other people to learn something or participate.
Sometimes trolls ask questions which they have absolutely no interest in the answers to just to waste people’s time. I’ve seen them leave abruptly without saying a word and Never come back as soon as their question was unexpectedly answered by a devoper who happened to be there at that moment.
I think their goal is to make us look bad in the channel if we can’t answer their question in the ten minutes allotted ::)
....
Recently someone asked one of these sorts of questions and then ran away after I suggested that he try the forums.
I asked the question here for him because it piqued my curiosity.
https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,62941.msg476339/topicseen.html#new
I even went so far as to send him a link but he refuses to come online or read his memos. I wonder why... >:D
When it comes to this infamous RTFM, I have to say, yes, many of the questions here can be answered by reading the manuals. But there are quite a lot of manuals, its often hard to find which is the appropriate manual, often hard to identify what manual content applies to a particular problem.
Sometimes trolls ask questions which they have absolutely no interest in the answers to just to waste people’s time. I’ve seen them leave abruptly without saying a word and Never come back as soon as their question was unexpectedly answered by a devoper who happened to be there at that moment.
Lately I’ve been trying to refer strange people who appear In channel out of nowhere to the forums where there are more people to help them. They make all sorts of strange excuses to not come here. I’d wager that they have already been here and had an encounter with the moderators.
Do you want to here something funny? Recently a troll With an IP address from Tbilisi Georgia posted in ircQuotethere are no programming jobs in the world for pascal. Yet Lazarus keeps getting updated. I don’t believe anyone would put all this work into a hobby. Who is funding Lazarus??
The "writing open source as a hobby" is probably (I have no idea) represented very differently in cultures around the world.
... The first thing this nick has ever said in channel is “there are no pascal jobs” implying that pascal is a useless language to learn because there are no jobs. If a known Pascal programmer Lamented the shortage of pascal Programming jobs I would not consider it trolling.
Why would someone besides a troll ...
... Our funding {if there is any} is none of his business.
I don't consider that was a troll. Just because his curiosity why people keep using Pascal even there are less jobs available, asking for the answer will make him a troll?
Does it? There are good and bad games written in any language. If I wanted to write a game, and was yet undecided on the language to use, that would exactly be the question that I would ask. And being denied an answer, Pascal would just drop of the list of considered languages.QuoteWhat games have been written using Lazarus? I mean good games..“I mean good games” implies that games written using Lazarus are inferior.
The first thing this nick has ever said in channel is “there are no pascal jobs” implying that pascal is a useless language to learn because there are no jobs.Maybe troll, maybe disappointed, maybe something else.
There is one thing that never varies with these sorts of people. They never have anything constructive to say about Lazarus and seem to want to discredit it and discourage people from using it."discourage" Not sure when last someone like this appeared on the forum. Only seen that (and very rarely even then) with people who tried to use Pascal, but couldn't get it to do what they wanted.
Why would someone besides a troll take the trouble to find our obscure support channel on a not so popular irc chatting network to declare that there are no pascal jobs and decide what we are willing do for a hobby? Our funding {if there is any} is none of his business.For all the reasons I have given.
I seriously doubt that he uses pascal or the Lazarus ide at all and his question was very offtopic and seemed to be more of a pretext for causing an argument.
Trolls like to lure channel members into discussions defending fpc and Lazarus. That is NOT what these channels are for. The channels are for people who like fpc and Lazarus enough to use them for programming projects.
Unfortunately That is not What these people are being paid to do.
I have to do what works best for me in dealing with these people. Until I can come up with a better explanation I’m going to go with they are paid to do this theory. ::)
My feeling is that as a community, we keep piling stuff on top of the Pascal foundation: and the pile is getting unstable. This is, of course, largely driven by Borland who've changed what was originally a fairly tight and tidy language into something larger than any of the 4GLs that were in vogue in the 80s and 90s.
Provided, of course, that none of us choose Python :-)
What is a "borrowing checker"?
I'm not convinced that it's a bad idea, but it does tend to move away from the ALGOL-derived execution model where the stack frame maps trivially to the block structure.
I was having a conversation with someone today about rust.
I told him how I solved the problem of properly deallocating memory which is referenced by many pointers belonging to different instances of classes with same base class.
The solution I came up with was to use a Boolean flag called cloned:Boolean and only have be false in the class instance where the memory was originally allocated.
So all classes can use same destructor but the pointer to memory will only be reallocated if cloned = false.
I was told that my method of memory management is opposite of how rust does it...
macros (an abomination that is widely abused in C) and the lack of classes.
whether a well-designed macro facility could be used to extend the language as a way of adding that soft of thing.Occasionally I miss having macros in FPC (I don't consider what FPC offers a "real" macro facility, simply too limited) but, the problem with macros isn't really in their implementation, the problem is that a flexible/powerful macro facility allows for writing source code that has little to no resemblance to the code the compiler sees (compiles.)
One thing I'm considering is that if the core language had a formal definition (i.e. named BNF-like rules) a macro could be defined to take something that conformed to a named rule as a parameter rather than a token with predefined termination.
. Well, why do people need a new programming language that, instead of introducing a real solution to a problem, only moves it to another place? Or maybe there is no clear solution to this problem?Programming languages have become like the fashion industry....
That's the real problem with macros, it often requires the programmer to maintain code that is not quite the code the compiler sees leading to very subtle and difficult problems to solve. In C/C++ code that is "macro-laden" can also be cumbersome to debug.
Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS
This macro expands to { PyThreadState *_save; _save = PyEval_SaveThread();. Note that it contains an opening brace; it must be matched with a following Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS macro. See above for further discussion of this macro. It is a no-op when thread support is disabled at compile time.
Py_END_ALLOW_THREADS
This macro expands to PyEval_RestoreThread(_save); }. Note that it contains a closing brace; it must be matched with an earlier Py_BEGIN_ALLOW_THREADS macro. See above for further discussion of this macro. It is a no-op when thread support is disabled at compile time.
The problem with a flexible and powerful macro facility is that there are as many good reasons to hate it as there are to love it.That's the real problem with macros, it often requires the programmer to maintain code that is not quite the code the compiler sees leading to very subtle and difficult problems to solve. In C/C++ code that is "macro-laden" can also be cumbersome to debug.
I don't necessarily see that as a problem.