I think you are being a little over-critical. There are always better ways to do everything. This contributor was doing something that had never been done before -- by himself.
Isn't the whole point of open source to show the code and let community involvement make it better?
Since you have a lot of experience with HTML parsing, it'd be better to contribute your experience to the project than to bash someone for not doing something you know well as well as you could do it.
ESR is a well known hacker who has maintained several large-scale OSS projects and done lots of coding for several decades. He literally wrote the book about OSS. If ESR's code was markedly bad, it would be news.
Hey there, Jim Thompson! How surprising to see you here, posting under your usual "I have a reputation to protect so I post under a pseudonym" name. You should put more effort into libelling people -- maybe your fine work will rise to the level of a lawsuit someday?
I'm aware. fnid just seemed to be under the impression that ESR was a newbie that was genuinely looking for help from more experienced hackers. I was just showing that he (ESR) is a noted (notorious) figure that should know better than to make noobish mistakes in code.
I never said that he was any good; merely that he has notoriety. I thought that made that clear. I guess not, so let me reiterate:
Jgrahamc commented that ESR's code here is pretty crappy. I agree. Fnid comes in and accuses jgrahamc of being too harsh. It appears to my mind's eye that Fnid doesn't know who ESR is and naivly assumes that he is some random newbie that would appreciate help, rather than a notorious figure with a number of projects books under his belt. I'm pointing out that it is not wrong for jgrahamc to call him on it. If ESR's is mostly self publication, them I am even more correct.
To further elaborate, if Bjarne Stroustrup wrote an C compiler that was ineptly coded and someone said the code was lousy, one would not reply, 'lighten up, this was a good first try for a newbie,' unless one did not know who Bjarne Strousup was.
Comments
I think you are being a little over-critical. There are always better ways to do everything. This contributor was doing something that had never been done before -- by himself.
Isn't the whole point of open source to show the code and let community involvement make it better?
Since you have a lot of experience with HTML parsing, it'd be better to contribute your experience to the project than to bash someone for not doing something you know well as well as you could do it.
ESR is a well known hacker who has maintained several large-scale OSS projects and done lots of coding for several decades. He literally wrote the book about OSS. If ESR's code was markedly bad, it would be news.
He's certainly a talented self-publicist, but I'd go no further than that. He's the Michael Moore of software. Or the Paris Hilton.
He's more Nichole Richie. He doesn't rise to the level of Paris, who was surprised by jail, but never surprised by wealth.
He's like Zed Shaw only without, y'know, actual code
Hey there, Jim Thompson! How surprising to see you here, posting under your usual "I have a reputation to protect so I post under a pseudonym" name. You should put more effort into libelling people -- maybe your fine work will rise to the level of a lawsuit someday?
Which large scale OSS projects?
Fetchmail is the most famous one. http://fetchmail.berlios.de/
gpsd is another, but esr seems to have trouble understanding parts of it.
CML2 is yet another, though it failed to gain acceptance by the kernel group.
the GNU ncurses library was maintained by Mr. Raymond for a while.
fetchmail wasn't an original idea, it came out of UC Berkeley's "popclient".
ESR has also famously over-claimed his experience (several times).
I'm aware. fnid just seemed to be under the impression that ESR was a newbie that was genuinely looking for help from more experienced hackers. I was just showing that he (ESR) is a noted (notorious) figure that should know better than to make noobish mistakes in code.
You're assuming that because he's loud, he's good.
Truth is, he is loud, but... he's not very good at writing software.
He's not bad at books, provided he has an editor working with him. The writing on his blog is a mess.
I never said that he was any good; merely that he has notoriety. I thought that made that clear. I guess not, so let me reiterate:
Jgrahamc commented that ESR's code here is pretty crappy. I agree. Fnid comes in and accuses jgrahamc of being too harsh. It appears to my mind's eye that Fnid doesn't know who ESR is and naivly assumes that he is some random newbie that would appreciate help, rather than a notorious figure with a number of projects books under his belt. I'm pointing out that it is not wrong for jgrahamc to call him on it. If ESR's is mostly self publication, them I am even more correct.
To further elaborate, if Bjarne Stroustrup wrote an C compiler that was ineptly coded and someone said the code was lousy, one would not reply, 'lighten up, this was a good first try for a newbie,' unless one did not know who Bjarne Strousup was.