Possibly better loop construct, also labels+goto important and on the fly compiler idea.

[rurpy at yahoo.com]

On 11/01/2013 09:52 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>[...]
> I did not declare as a 
> fact that he had no experience, as you claim, but posed it as a question 
> and expressed it explicitly as a subjective observation.

This is a key point.  Several of your other denials are 
true only if you are right about this. 

You concluded your reply to Skybuck with:
 
 "Wait *until* you *start* programming..." [my emphasis]

The implication, that the OP does not have any programming 
experience, will be clear to anyone with with even mediocre 
English speaking ability.  The semantic information conveyed 
to the OP is the same as the statement of fact, "you have no 
programming experience" and it is perfectly valid to claim 
that you told the OP that he had no programming experience.

I pointed this out in nearly every email but in every one 
of your responses to it, you ignore that concluding sentence
and mention *only* your initial questioning sentence to 
justify your assertion that you "posed it as a question".

As an aside, you shouldn't rely on that initial question
sentence so much either -- just because something is framed
as a question does not mean its intent is not to attack:
"excuse me for asking, but are you an asshole?"
You asked, "have you *ever* done *any* programming *at all*?" 
[my emphasis] which could be as easily taken as rhetorically 
laying the ground for discrediting his idea as an honest 
neutral question and the former interpretation is strengthened 
by your concluding "wait until..." statement.

My claims of "ad hominem" and "attack" follow from the fact 
that you *did* tell the OP he had no programming experience, 
in direct contradiction to what he had stated, and with no 
evidence to support your claim beyond the OP's opinions on 
loops and goto's.

> Each time I have responded to you, I have given direct quotes and 
> directly addressed the substance of your posts, which is all to do with 
> the supposed tone of my response to the OP. Each time you have continued 
> to misrepresent me, misquote me, and interpret my words assuming bad 
> faith rather than good, in order to justify your idea that my post was an 
> ad hominem attack.
> 
> Including this post, where you make the false statement that:
> 
>     [quote]
>     His idea was that loop tests should always or usually be done 
>     at the end of the loop.  You discussed *nothing* that supported
>     that idea.
> 
> Emphasis yours. But in fact I gave the concrete example of Pascal 
> repeat...until loops, which have the test at the end of the loop. So yet 
> again your claims are simply wrong.

That was an unfortunate example for you to chose since it 
directly contradicts your claims.

Read that quote again.  You are a programmer.  You should 
understand logic.  Please explain how acknowledging *one* 
useful end-of-loop construct supports the idea that 
  /quote/ 
  loop tests should *always or usually* be done at the end of the loop 
  /endquote/,
especially when you present it with long string of cases where 
testing at the bottom is *not* desirable.  You did not agree 
with the OPs idea that the test should *always* go at the end 
of the loop and I represented your opinion as such.

This was pointed out to you before yet you continue to claim
I am misrepresenting you.

> This is four posts in a row now that you have wrongly represented me. I 
> can only conclude that you think that by repeating a lie often enough, 
> you'll convince others that it must be true and "win".

In my preceding post, I pointed out your practice of repeating
the same discredited accusations in the the hope that repeating 
them enough would somehow make them true... It is amusing to 
see you lift my own words to use against me (although I used 
the word "accusation" and you choose to use the word "lie" -- 
a difference in our standards I guess.)

I misrepresented you once, immediately acknowledged and corrected
it when you pointed it out.  You have continued to accuse me of 
misrepresenting you in *every* post you've made, while refusing 
to respond to my request to tell me how you think you *should* be
paraphrased.

Indeed you have followed a consistent policy of falsely accusing 
me of underhanded and disreputable practices, while at the same
time, often in the same sentence, engaging copiously in exactly 
those same practices yourself.  

> I will no longer 
> play this game with you. Goodbye.
> 
> *plonk*
 
Bye.