Re: The Limit (formerly: limiting access to a context object's methods)

["Geir Magnusson Jr." <ge...@adeptra.com>]

On 5/5/02 11:00 AM, "Jonathan Revusky" <jr...@terra.es> wrote:

> Terry Steichen wrote:
>> Jonathan,
>> 
>> I've been reading this 'discussion' with something between awe and
>> revulsion.  You are clearly very smart and (I think) knowlegeable.  I don't
>> know much about your FreeMarker project, but I suspect it is pretty good.
>> 
>> Geir, whatever you think of him (not much, from your comments) is
>> remarkable.  He has the energy of 10 and is also incredibly smart and
>> eloquent - and *very* helpful to people who ask for help.  To label Velocity
>> as a 'copy-cat' technology is simply snide.
> 
> I disagree. It's not "simply snide". It's factual. Velocity was
> consciously created as a WebMacro clone. That much is is not a matter of
> legitimate debate. It is openly admittedly on the Velocity web pages.
> Once you know the history of the project, the reason that VTL does not
> have floating point arithmetic is quite obvious. The thing they were
> copying did not have floating point. That Geir then wants to represent
> that this deficiency was a result of some conscious design decision that
> *they* made -- that, to me, bears a clear whiff of mendacity.


Set em up and knock em down.  Straw everywhere...


[SNIP]
> 
> I am being civil with you. Let me review. You have taken issue with my
> statement that Velocity is, in your paraphrase "a copy-cat technology".

It is indeed.  

We thank the WebMacro community for their pioneering work on our site and
every place that is appropriate (like articles.)

Freemarker is a copy-cat as well, unless you are going to claim that
templating didn't exist before Freemarker was created. And now Freemarker
has copied the introspection from WebMacro/Velocity, and you are about to
copy the introspective restriction mechanism from Velocity.   That's the
nice thing about this stuff being open source - we all learn and take from
each other.

> However, the statement is factual. Also, the statement was not
> gratuitous, because I was taking issue with the claim that the lack of
> floating point in VTL was the result of a conscious design decision on
> their part. Well, I guess it is true in a *sense* that they made the
> conscious design decision to omit floating point -- insofar as they made
> the conscious design decision to copy WebMacro and WebMacro did not have
> floating point...

More straw...

-- 
Geir Magnusson Jr.
Research & Development, Adeptra Inc.
geirm@adeptra.com
+1-203-247-1713



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Re: The Limit (formerly: limiting access to a context object's methods)

[Jonathan Revusky <jr...@terra.es>]

Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
> On 5/5/02 11:00 AM, "Jonathan Revusky" <jr...@terra.es> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Terry Steichen wrote:
>>
>>>Jonathan,
>>>
>>>I've been reading this 'discussion' with something between awe and
>>>revulsion.  You are clearly very smart and (I think) knowlegeable.  I don't
>>>know much about your FreeMarker project, but I suspect it is pretty good.
>>>
>>>Geir, whatever you think of him (not much, from your comments) is
>>>remarkable.  He has the energy of 10 and is also incredibly smart and
>>>eloquent - and *very* helpful to people who ask for help.  To label Velocity
>>>as a 'copy-cat' technology is simply snide.
>>
>>I disagree. It's not "simply snide". It's factual. Velocity was
>>consciously created as a WebMacro clone. That much is is not a matter of
>>legitimate debate. It is openly admittedly on the Velocity web pages.
>>Once you know the history of the project, the reason that VTL does not
>>have floating point arithmetic is quite obvious. The thing they were
>>copying did not have floating point. That Geir then wants to represent
>>that this deficiency was a result of some conscious design decision that
>>*they* made -- that, to me, bears a clear whiff of mendacity.
> 
> 
> 
> Set em up and knock em down.  Straw everywhere...

You keep claiming that I make straw-man arguments but you are never 
specific about what the argument is and why it is a straw-man.

What straw-man argument are you referring to?

> 
> 
> [SNIP]
> 
>>I am being civil with you. Let me review. You have taken issue with my
>>statement that Velocity is, in your paraphrase "a copy-cat technology".
> 
> 
> It is indeed.  

Yep.

> 
> We thank the WebMacro community for their pioneering work on our site and
> every place that is appropriate (like articles.)
> 
> Freemarker is a copy-cat as well, 

Well, hold on. FreeMarker is most certainly not a copy-cat product in 
the way Velocity is. It is not the result of anybody sitting down and 
consciously writing a tweedledum-tweedledee copy of an existing product.

I have never done such a thing and I would never do that. Well, maybe if 
I was paid to do that, I would, but just for the hell of it?

> unless you are going to claim that
> templating didn't exist before Freemarker was created. 

The product *category* existed, but it was not written as a conscious 
knock-off clone of any existing product.

> And now Freemarker
> has copied the introspection from WebMacro/Velocity, and you are about to
> copy the introspective restriction mechanism from Velocity. 

The last part is not true, because I had the idea independently. I 
distinctly remember writing Attila Szegedi about it and him telling me 
that Velocity was going to have this. And that was the first I heard of it.

In any case, there is a difference between adapting the best ideas that 
are floating around and writing a complete knock-off clone of somebody 
else's work. I have too much self respect to do something like that and 
I also consider that to be in very questionable taste.

Now, you obviously differ and see no problem with cloning other people's 
work like that. So, given that, I don't see what the issue is about my 
pointing out that that's what you did.

Regards,

Jonathan Revusky
--
Lead developer of FreeMarker http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/
Build robust web appications with the
Niggle Web Application Framework http://niggle.org/
Available for Java/Internet Consulting






>  That's the
> nice thing about this stuff being open source - we all learn and take from
> each other.
> 
> 
>>However, the statement is factual. Also, the statement was not
>>gratuitous, because I was taking issue with the claim that the lack of
>>floating point in VTL was the result of a conscious design decision on
>>their part. Well, I guess it is true in a *sense* that they made the
>>conscious design decision to omit floating point -- insofar as they made
>>the conscious design decision to copy WebMacro and WebMacro did not have
>>floating point...
> 
> 
> More straw...
> 



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