Ideas about how software should behave

[Ned Batchelder]

On 11/8/17 10:18 PM, Ben Finney wrote:
>> How many paragraphs of close parsing are we going to twist ourselves
>> through, just to avoid saying, "Yeah, sorry, that went a bit far.  I
>> didn't want to alienate you in the pursuit of a demonstration of my
>> own correctness."
> I don't have any aim of avoiding that. If I need to apologise for
> something, that hasn't been made clear to me. If you're seeking an
> apology from someone else, I can't do it for them.

You have nothing to apologize for.  This started because of an exchange 
between Steve and Jon.  Steve has been notably silent during the ensuing 
discussion.
>
> What has been made clear to me is that we have a long way to go in
> pursuit of allowing ideas to be held at arm's length, discussed and
> criticised, with respect and compassion for one another.

Indeed.  Beyond just respect and compassion, this discussion has 
mentioned "changing people's minds" a few times.  How's that going? 
Calling an idea "arrogant" may or may not be reasonable (I'm divided on 
this question myself).  But is it an effective way to change the 
person's mind?  It's a great term to use if you want to smack someone 
down, and convince everyone else that you are right.  But it's going to 
put the other person on the defensive, and you've lost your chance to 
change their mind.

Both of the terms that have been brought up recently ("arrogant" and 
"moronic") seem ineffective to me.  If the goal truly is to engage in a 
discussion that will bring everyone to a point of agreement, then we 
have to choose words more wisely.  These words seem to me to have been 
chosen with a different goal.

--Ned.