Author Topic: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates  (Read 26105 times)

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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #30 on: November 15, 2011, 12:18:56 pm »
ah, but the thing is that the entire discussion on cemetech was actually a peacefull discussion with each side giving their side of the story and everyone respecting each other's decision. I would think the topic on cemetech was not peaceful and was a bunch of snobs bashing axe if I only had read this topic.

/opinion
One issue is how years ago there were many anti-BASIC discussions elsewhere and in some cases they were intended to single out BASIC programmers and when I read Ashbad's quoted IRC post in the topic, I felt Axe programmers were being singled out as community figures or treated as inferior beings. Axe vs ASM did not happen as much as BASIC vs ASM so far but I feared it might go too far, hence why I did some sort of wake up call with my thread to share my opinion and past experiences, in case some people later end up simply splitting the community in half again, turning non-Axe and Axe users into two enemy clans or something.

Also because of past bad experiences, it's hard to make the difference between some comments that are intentionally offensive and not, and since I like Axe and a lot of good Axe programmers frequents Omni (and some Cemetech), my initial reaction was the same as with BASIC coders: defend them and the language.

In no way I meant to start any fight. If anything, what I thought is that it was you and tifreak who were trying to start one, which I hope is not the case. In the past, I've blown up a lot and when I endured enough, I end up ragequitting. After reading your post, I wondered if it wasn't what you attempted to cause too.

Also to be honest, if the topic on Cemetech is in no way bad including Ashbad's first quote, I do not see how we shouldn't be allowed to do the same with Doors CS7 (although I don't see the point, considering it's another pretty solid programming tool and I've been fighting to convert Ion/Mirage users I find to DCS). After all, the comments saying most people treat Axe coders as uber haxors and most axe coders use Axe as a crutch were posted in their back too, sort of. I'm not saying Omnimaga should encourage language debates, but rather the fact that if some people feel attacked, it's obvious you will see some similar reactions. I'm glad both topics remained civil in general, though, which is why before initially posting it, I tried to make sure I am calm enough (although it seems it was still seen as some sort of overeaction by a few people).
« Last Edit: November 15, 2011, 12:35:05 pm by DJ_O »

Offline lkj

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #31 on: November 15, 2011, 12:36:42 pm »
I don't think you're only a good programmer if you know ASM. It's obvious that if you make e.g. a game in ASM instead of making the same game in a higher level language you're a better programmer, but if you make a program with more possibilities in a higher level language in the same time you'd need to make an ASM program with less possibilities, why should you choose ASM? For many types of programs it's more a question of what you prefer than of real advantages.
In addition, programming skills alone don't make good programs.

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #32 on: November 15, 2011, 12:38:36 pm »
DJ, I wasn't attempting to start any fights. I was pointing out that it looked as if you were trying to say Cemetech and Kerm were bad for starting up a debate on the usefulness of Axe. That is what I was pointing out. Even if you didn't intend to make the post like that, it looks like an indirect bash at Cemetech, and that was rather unfair in my eyes. So long as you are not bashing, then there is no problem.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #33 on: November 15, 2011, 12:41:11 pm »
I don't think you're only a good programmer if you know ASM. It's obvious that if you make e.g. a game in ASM instead of making the same game in a higher level language you're a better programmer, but if you make a program with more possibilities in a higher level language in the same time you'd need to make an ASM program with less possibilities, why should you choose ASM? For many types of programs it's more a question of what you prefer than of real advantages.
In addition, programming skills alone don't make good programs.
It's a bit like me with Sony ACID Pro 7 and MTV Music Generator 1. I know how to use both in general and Sony ACID is a MUCH more superior (and professional) tool than MTV Music Generator, but in Sony ACID it takes so incredibly long to make a song and make sure it sounds how I want that it impairs my creativity. As a result, I switched to professional tools in mid 2008 to make music, but finally I found myself going back to the original MTVMG again because I felt more comfortable with it. My MTVMG1 songs sounds much better than the songs I made with any other programs too, IMHO. The rest is even more repetitive.
DJ, I wasn't attempting to start any fights. I was pointing out that it looked as if you were trying to say Cemetech and Kerm were bad for starting up a debate on the usefulness of Axe. That is what I was pointing out. Even if you didn't intend to make the post like that, it looks like an indirect bash at Cemetech, and that was rather unfair in my eyes. So long as you are not bashing, then there is no problem.
@Tifreak thank you. I assure you I was not trying to do so. It just seems that no matter how hard I try to rant about a TI community issue in a calm way, it's still seen as an overreaction or a fight starting attempt.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2011, 12:45:57 pm by DJ_O »

Offline KermMartian

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #34 on: November 15, 2011, 01:01:59 pm »
lkj, if you read the thread in question, you'll see that no one was claiming either that only ASM programmers are good, or that Axe programmers are bad programmers.  Instead, the main point that everyone, Cemetech regulars and Omnimaga regulars alike, respectfully and amicably agreed upon, was that it behooves programmers to pick the correct language for what they're trying to make.  Clearly BASIC is not good for trying to make complex grayscale games, ASM is not good for writing floating-point math programs, and Axe is not good for trying to make a shell or GUI API.  I strongly invite you to read through the thread in question on Cemetech from beginning to end and see if your opinion of it changes.  I caution you not to accept someone else's characterization without freely deciding for yourself. :)

Quote from: Hayleia
Omnimaga is, in one way, Axe's home, and the same way, Cemetech is DoorsCS' home.
On Cemetech, you criticized Axe.
On Omnimaga, I said that some of your critics could apply to DoorsCS.
So we basically did the same thing.
One of the misunderstandings here is that the cultures on Cemetech and Omnimaga are quite different.  On Omnimaga, bashing is forbidden, so people tend to compliment projects and offer only positive suggestions regardless of the project and author, which is fine, that's the type of community (well, except for years of threads like this criticizing me, Cemetech, and Cemetech's members ;)). I feel that a lot of that tradition comes from the general audience of Omnimaga, who tend to be younger, generally high school age or below, and who perhaps need those sort of rules in place to maintain harmony, which seems successful, again with the exception of threads like this one.  Cemetech, on the other hand, tries to promote more open discussion, including, where appropriate, criticisms.  We especially like people to speak their minds, develop their own opinions, and think for themselves.  Fittingly, the Cemetech crowd tends to be older programmers, from high school through college through professionals; I myself am a PhD student, as you may or may not know.  When we see a programmer attempting a project that may be outside the scope of his skill or patience, we try to gently push him or her towards a project that may be better suited to his or her current abilities, and will thus give him more experience to later tackle his original project and be more likely to succeed with it.  We have found that this is a very effective approach in the past, and even though people may balk at it at first, they almost universally look back on the experience later and thank us for helping them maintain a realistic view.  Needless to say, it takes a more mature individual, for better or worse, to interpret negative feedback as constructive rather than seeing it as outright criticism or insulting.  That's not to say one shouldn't respond in kind to outright insults, but one gains a certain understanding that some criticisms are intended in the best interest of the programmer in question.  At Cemetech, I try to encourage everyone to think for themselves and form their own opinions, even if they may offend me or each other, because they're just opinions, and everyone is welcome to their own.  Hence, if I say "I feel ____ about Axe", that's my prerogative, and it's up to the other members of the community to either agree or disagree, which they're equally welcome to.  Throughout the course of a discussion or debate, people's opinions may be affected, but if at the end of the debate everyone does not agree, that's fine.  Therefore, the difference between your post and mine was that I openly discussed my particular opinions, and invited people to respond with their own opinions.  I didn't insult any specific language or any specific programmers; the only individual that I singled out, Quigibo, was in a positive light, to complement his programming.  I felt that your characterization of one specific project, though it would have been welcome in a post at Cemetech where I could respond to your concerns and either contradict them or agree that Doors CS had those shortcomings, was instead intended as a hurtful response, even though it was hopefully in the heat of the moment, and was contrary to Omnimaga's anti-bashing rules.  To conclude, I feel that over and over in the past 9 years, the rules of Omnimaga (for example, no "bashing") have been attempted to be applied to the community at large (for example, criticizing people and sites for what they say on Cemetech, Revsoft, TIFreakware, MaxCoderz, TI-News.net, and ticalc.org, among others), and that this thread is a good example of that mistake.  Unfortunately, many such as lkj are inclined to agree with the original poster, even if they may not have gotten a chance to form their own independent opinions.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #35 on: November 15, 2011, 01:27:27 pm »
Kerm I think the thing is since Cemetech is the only calculator forum other than Omnimaga that still has signifiant enough activity to allow a debate or heated discussion and that Omnimaga has strict rules about criticism, it's inevitable that if anything we don't like is gonna happen elsewhere than Omnimaga, it's on Cemetech. It doesn't mean it's Cemetech as a whole, it's just that the higher the activity, the higher the chances this happens.

Of course, however, the mentality of both sites are quite different in general, so that's inevitably gonna cause some clashes from time to time if someone disagrees with the other or misinterpretations (Like last night when Aes_sedia said I need to get a life, then later said it was just a joke). Some things are similar like making sure people don't start projects outside of their scope, because I myself tried to make sure some newer members don't do that, but we are fewer that will do that, so with the large volume of posts that comes in sometimes, inevitably we can't keep up. It also doesn't help that my experience towards programming isn't as high either.

Also with this thread I did not intend to apply Omnimaga rules on Cemetech Kerm. Of course on Cemetech more controversial topics might be allowed, but I simply felt some Axe programmers were seen as people with little programming skills and the Axe language felt attacked for me by one of Ashbad's remark, so see this topic as me and us being on the defensive. IMHO we should be allowed to defend ourselves and if anything was misunderstood (which was finally the case), then we clear things out. I guess it could be seen as trying to apply Omni rules on Cemetech because of the complaints about the thread there, but it's not the intention. The last time I tried to do that was in 2009, on TIBD. From 2006-09 that was my last ditch attempt to save the community because I felt there was abuse and that it would eventually kill the community. This was a huge mistake, because doing so had opposite effects. Afterward, I simply decided to move my entire focus to Omnimaga itself.

Anyway I'M thinking about locking this soon, since it seems to have been taken more badly than anything else despite my attempt to make it sound otherwise. However, I wanted everyone to defend themselves, if needed, and if anything needs to be added, I wanted to let people do so before any lock occurs, so this remains open for the rest of the afternoon.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2011, 01:52:36 pm by DJ_O »

Offline alberthrocks

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #36 on: November 15, 2011, 03:08:44 pm »
Wow.... did I really cause all of this? O_O I apologize - I'm terribly sorry for all this happening, even if I caused it indirectly. :(

Well, let's explain my comment above:
This all started with a debate on IRC (specifically, #cemetech), with a discussion on Axe's problems. After I defended Axe a bit, a few friends came over to work on a collab AP English project. After coming back to see the highlight, I suggested that this be made into a topic:
Code: [Select]
17:52 < alberthro> KermM_, post a topic about the stuffs we talked about today and I might reply :) I'm busy with a collab project atm, so...
A few hours later, the topic was made. I thought it would be a good chance to fight on the Axe sides of things and have it stick (found here). I did not realize that it would explode into community bashing, which was not supposed to be the case.

The good thing that has come out of this is that the Axe side (kinda) won, and that the topic of Axe vs. ASM is (finally?) done and dead. If anyone still has an issue to take up with Axe, that particular thread should be read.

Again, I would like to apologize for my actions. I did not anticipate this topic to become a full out flame war, and should have had the foresight to see that occur.

The topic itself does not, and should not, have any community bashing. (The IRC chat, however, did - one user in particular who I will not name.) There is one reply to that Cemetech topic that is borderline, but I will leave it to you guys to find such person.

If KermM permits, I can post the full IRC logs from that incident/debate. (I have a VPS that does some pretty nice logging, so...)

EDIT: Reviewing the logs from before, before I joined, that particular person was on a full out rampage against Axe and this community... :P I think the issue should be settled once the logs are released. I've already dumped out the portion of the IRC log that relates to this incident - I just need the OK.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2011, 03:12:35 pm by alberthrocks »
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Offline KermMartian

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #37 on: November 15, 2011, 05:49:51 pm »
Quote from: alberthro
The good thing that has come out of this is that the Axe side (kinda) won, and that the topic of Axe vs. ASM is (finally?) done and dead. If anyone still has an issue to take up with Axe, that particular thread should be read.
I don't think it's a war, there's no winner and no loser.  As has been stated, the point of the thread was to discuss various viewpoints, see what other people had to say, and get a chance to debate each others' viewpoints while seeing some other perspectives.  Since that happened, and a passionate but respectful discussion was maintained, I'd say we all won.  The only people who lose are those that see attacks in intellectual debate, which based on the later posts in this thread, it seems no one is doing anymore.  I don't quite understand why you're apologizing for encouraging a frank and open debate about a set of programming languages, any more than I would expect you to apologize for encouraging people to debate C vs. Java or Python vs. Perl.  I also see no reason to point fingers at one particular user who may have had biased actions, since the overwhelming majority of the debaters conducted themselves maturely and professionally.

Offline LincolnB

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #38 on: November 15, 2011, 06:09:23 pm »
yeah, I think we all just need to kinda...chill out. Peace, brothers. Haters will hate, whatever, Axe/BASIC/ASM programmers will program their fav language, regardless of if you show them a rock solid argument for why you think it's not as classy or elegant or blah as another language. I guess it's more about yourself, how you choose to react to things. IMO, language debates never really create anything but contention, not because people say mean things, but because people over react...anyways.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #39 on: November 15, 2011, 06:30:06 pm »
Yeah IMHO people should program the language they are satisfied with. Of course they should try other alternatives too, but in the end, if it worsen their programming experiences, it's best that they revert back to previous languages they prefered.

As for the logs discussed in Alberthro post, I don't think it's necessary to post them, especially if it's just one single person or if it's someone who got permbanned here and said bad stuff in revenge. If someone absolutely wish the death of Omnimaga as it is and is ready to do everything to discourage anyone from joining us in our back or decides to spam our forum in revenge, it's his call.

Anyway, topic lock is coming at 23:59:59 PM, unless I'm playing Halo 10th anniversary or Starcraft II, then. Starcraft II is far more superior to calcs and everyone should play as Zerg because Terran is OP. j/k
« Last Edit: November 15, 2011, 06:34:13 pm by DJ_O »

Offline Yeong

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #40 on: November 15, 2011, 06:35:50 pm »
Quote
Starcraft II is far more superior to calcs and everyone should play as Zerg because Terran is OP. j/k
lol
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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #41 on: November 15, 2011, 11:11:18 pm »
Axe is not good for trying to make a shell or GUI API.
Now I wanna make an Axe GUI.
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Offline KermMartian

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #42 on: November 15, 2011, 11:54:51 pm »
Axe is not good for trying to make a shell or GUI API.
Now I wanna make an Axe GUI.
Go for it. :) I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

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Offline Darl181

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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #43 on: November 16, 2011, 12:03:21 am »
Axe is not good for trying to make a shell or GUI API.
Now I wanna make an Axe GUI.
Iirc alberthrocks and ephan did a joint project on one, not sure what happened to it tho.
Edit: link
« Last Edit: November 16, 2011, 12:03:55 am by Darl181 »
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Re: Anti-Axe/BASIC mentality/debates
« Reply #44 on: November 16, 2011, 12:07:50 am »
I did too but it died very early and sircmpwn managed to create a command line from which you can run no-shell programs.
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