> Sorry, I'm just too stupid to figure out what decent human motive could h=
ave
> prompted a brilliant man like Olin to share this with all of us...
>
> ..but I have faith that there must be one.

I don't know if you've read this thread from the start, and the one
before it which this is essentially a continuation of, but, even I can
manage a bit of figuring on this.

The 'problem' is not Olin's stated aim (and his actual aim may or may
not correlate well with this, but that's something I can't tell) but
his stated and practiced method. If he could divorce the latter two
and retain the former 'The world would be a brighter place' [tm].

The "decent human motive" may be stated as "That all may do things
decently and in order so that all may be edified thereby" or "That
people present things (questions, ideas, code, projects, self ... ) in
a logical and ordered manner in order that they may achieve optimum
results and be able to convey the benefits of these  results to others
and in return receive due benefits from the similarly ordered efforts
of others".

The (or a) flaw is that there is a fly in the ointment. The decent
human motives (regardless of their merit or not or attendance to
realism) have an added clause and an assumption and a conclusion.
The clause is " ... or leave."
The assumption is " most people are morons and incapable of this ideal
so should leave, preferably sooner, even better now.".
The conclusion is "It's my holy duty to make sure all this happens asasap".

Alas, a house divided against itself cannot stand :-(.
And a little leaven, apparently, leavens the whole lump.
ie if you see the world through moron coloured glasses people are
either morons or not - you can't get half a moron - that would be an
oxymoron (not really).

And, Olin is very good at some things and not quite so good at others.
Some, even here, are superior in ability or discernment or
perspicacity or erudition or whatever in some areas, than is Olin. So
then, Olin too is a moron, by his own definition, due to his
deficiency wrt these masters,, as are we all. (Maybe Scott's not a
moron, I don't know - I've never seen him put a foot wrong so far-  at
least technically :-) ).
So we are all in this together, the moron leading the moron and all
falling into the ditch, as it were. Olin is in it with the rest of us
so we thrash about, leaving the problem unresolved.

Our only hope of salvation, in this rather narrow context at least, is
for Olin to turn off his moron ray, climb down off his high horse,
divorce his decent human aim from his stated aim and practice and set
forth to educate the miscreants with a new assumption and conclusion.

This is unlikely to happen overnight (and extremely likely not to
happen at all).

To start gently, how about:

The assumption is " most people are less than perfect but may be
capable of approaching this ideal with a bit of firm by loving
encouragement, so hopefully most will take the path to learning and
few will leave.

The conclusion is "It's my holy duty to educate people so well that
they find it a wholly enjoyable experience and often don't even
realise that they've been though boot camp PIC processors 101 and
passed with flying colours."

However, achieving that would require a REAL expert. I don't know if
Olin's up to it.


         Russell
--=20
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