🚀 go-pugleaf

William Ware (wware@xionics.com) wrote:
: Glen C. Perkins (gperkins@netcom.com) wrote:
: : [ Arguing the merits of languages ] has a great deal of utility.
: : ...
: : I *love* to hear (read) two people who really know a lot
: : about a language, but have different
: : opinions, fight it out.
: : Keep up the preaching!

: Subsequent comments to this seemed to miss what I think was
: the real point, and what I found a lot more interesting than
: whether the writer continues to use C. I can only compare
: this to an experience I had (unrelated to languages per se).
: I had gotten really interested in installing the Linux OS on
: my home PC, and I wanted to hear some experienced people
: describe what they found fascinating and useful about Linux,
: what causes it to inspire such passion. Having that conversation
: with the Linux community was like pulling teeth! There are
: all these people who find Linux utterly fascinating, but who
: were completely unwilling to try to articulate that. Maybe it
: was because they smelled a newbie, and thought I didn't deserve
: to know why Linux was good, but it's hard to believe they'd
: all think that way. It's a curious thing to me that people
: should develop such intense passions and then be unwilling to
: share their enthusiasm, perhaps only because the listener hasn't
: jumped thru the same hoops they did. Just fascinating.

I think you are on the right path here.  I recently installed Linux on
my home PC (to accompany Win95) and I started reading some of the Linux
newsgroups.  I get the immpression that some of the Linux fanatics feel 
some sence of power and superiority for having tackled the challenge 
installing and maintaining it.  No one ever says it out right, but
critisms of other pc OS's (win95, OS2) often echo that underlying tone.
Please note the keyword "some" though.  Many other Linux folks are quite
helpful and encourageing to the newbie.
	With languages, it seems like the same attitude, but I think the
motivations are different.  I am currently programming a rather large
cgi system...primarily in Perl.  I catch myself "feeling" like perl is 
the greatest programming language in the world.  I know in another nine
months I will probably "feel" like C++ or Java or some other unknown
lang are the greatest in the world because that's what I'm doing, at
the time.  I've never experienced a situation where I'm programming in
the same langauge for a long period of time (the vagabond lifestyle of
consulting) but I imagine if I did, my brain would adjust to it to the
point where nothing else seemed like it could possibly be as good.
	I believe this motivates some of the "fanatic" language advocacy we 
that's so common on USENET.

BC