Another View of the Russell article

[Craig Clearman]

Hi Editors (and Senior Editor),

re:
http://www.devx.com/free/hotlinks/2001/ednote011901.asp

I'm not writing this to debate whether the article is correct, merely
to express my disappointment with the tone of some of the points in
the editorial. Your Senior Editor's comments were obviously snarky --
I really don't see how you could consider them to be useful or
appropriate to the debate. Russell's comments on Karl's site could, at
best, be considered a left-handed compliment. His comments on
"existing VB experts" seriously downgraded any thought I had to taking
him seriously.

Sadly, it also downgrades my respect for DevX.

I've become less and less enthusiastic over DevX due to a few of your
more recent articles. The articles you commissioned for theCore were
obviously bad enough. This editorial drives your standards even lower.
At least theCore attempted to sound professional. Some passages in the
above article fall way under the bar of professional.

My own rhetorical question: is this really the image you wish to
project? Are you trying to become more "edgy?" I certainly think you
are doing yourself a disservice. I can not really imagine that
professional developers enjoy reading articles and comments like
these. You will drive them away.

Ciao, Craig

[Todd B - Agendum Software]

Craig,

I have been reading many of the posts in regard to Russell's article.
Since you started a new thread, I figured I might as well jump in. I am
not understanding the reasons behind the reaction that some people are
having in regard to Russell's article. After reading it again, the article
appears to say that instead of complaining about .Net and the changes we
should dig in and see what it has to offer.

Many of the points he makes in the article are, in fact, true. You can
visit any number of newsgroups and see numerous postings that complain about
the very items he brought up. I have yet to see that number of articles
praising some of the really good changes nor have I seen any number of
comments discussing the nice changes implemented in .Net. (Which I
personally think are the way to go in some cases).

I took that article as saying we should all calm down a bit and give it a
chance and see how things shake out in terms of what direction the new .Net
goes. As for the 'hurt ego's thing', that is probably his personal opinion
based on feedback he has read or received. Personally I think that part of
it is completely irrelevant. Whether someone has a 'title' or is considered
to be an expert by a nitch group, has no bearing on the real world and what
happens in the corporate development field.

I do have concern about migration of VB6 apps to .Net and I am not sure I
agree with Russell's assessment of VB6 and .Net apps peacefully co-existing
without any problems. That part, IMHO, is not something we are going to
know or have a true grip on until we get closer to working with a release
build product.

I am not disagreeing with you or any one else nor am I saying I agree with
everything Russell had to say in the article. But when I read the article,
my first thought was that he was basically saying we should do a little more
research into what .Net has to offer and not so much complaining about the
changes until the actual end product is closer and we can better evaluate
the full product.

I did get the impression that he threw a little bit of a sarcastic tone in
there, and perhaps a bit of annoyance, at what he perceives to be a number
of people doing more whining than anything else. Is that what has so many
people upset about in terms of his article?

What is it that I am missing that is causing so much distress?
--
Sincerely,

Todd B - CEO - Agendum Software
http://www.AgendumSoftware.com | Mailto:ToddB@AgendumSoftware.com
(608) 837-6736 (419) 821-9599


"Craig Clearman" <chclear@nospam.please> wrote in message
news:86m17tkpqcktisjjttni73f1evoorefgd2@4ax.com...
> Hi Editors (and Senior Editor),
>
> re:
> http://www.devx.com/free/hotlinks/2001/ednote011901.asp
>
> I'm not writing this to debate whether the article is correct, merely
> to express my disappointment with the tone of some of the points in
> the editorial. Your Senior Editor's comments were obviously snarky --
> I really don't see how you could consider them to be useful or
> appropriate to the debate. Russell's comments on Karl's site could, at
> best, be considered a left-handed compliment. His comments on
> "existing VB experts" seriously downgraded any thought I had to taking
> him seriously.
>
> Sadly, it also downgrades my respect for DevX.
>
> I've become less and less enthusiastic over DevX due to a few of your
> more recent articles. The articles you commissioned for theCore were
> obviously bad enough. This editorial drives your standards even lower.
> At least theCore attempted to sound professional. Some passages in the
> above article fall way under the bar of professional.
>
> My own rhetorical question: is this really the image you wish to
> project? Are you trying to become more "edgy?" I certainly think you
> are doing yourself a disservice. I can not really imagine that
> professional developers enjoy reading articles and comments like
> these. You will drive them away.
>
> Ciao, Craig
>

[Lori Piquet]

Hi Craig,
I wanted to address your comments on the article's tone. I think the point
that you're making here is that you felt Russell was trying to discredit
(or poke fun at?) those whose opinions he doesn't quite agree with on this
matter. That is not a practice DevX would condone, and, in fact, I hope that
maybe after reading this reply you'll be less inclined to think this is the
case.

For example, this line from the article about Karl's VB.NOT site:
>>which (despite the music and the site's intention) is useful >>in revealing
the types of problems you're likely to encounter >>with .NET.
Perhaps (I'm admittedly making assumptions here) you perceived that comment
as sarcastic. I don't think Russell will mind me saying here that he meant
it quite literally. That is, Russell means exactly that he finds Karl's site
*is* useful in educating people about the biggest stumbling blocks they're
likely to come across. No disrespect to Karl is intended there. In fact,
I've just reread that one paragraph where Russell makes any specific mention
of individuals and I can't see anything but straightforward and very level,
unemotional statements.
If those comments were perceived as "snarky" by you and others I know it
was unintentional.

The rest of the article is purposefully devoid of quotes and references to
specific individuals for the precise reason that it would be unprofessional
and immaterial to talk about one person's arguments when in fact the point
of Russell's editorial was to collect the most often heard arguments--from
all sources--and to say why those arguments are not persuasive to him.

Re: the comment on "existing VB developers." Here too I think you may be
perceiving a snideness that did not exist in his mind when writing it. In
fact, I think Russell would put every developer, himself included, in this
boat. The point here is that because VB.NET is such a strong departure in
so many ways, that everyone--regardless of their hard-earned experience--ends
up having to learn certain things over again; having some degree of this
expertise rudely erased. And that's unfortunate. Not sarcastically unfortunate.
Really and truly sort of painful and frustrating.

We are not trying to be more edgy. We are just trying to be more involved,
more analytical. Opinion pieces rarely sit well with everyone; in fact, in
a very real way, an opinion piece that everyone agrees with is an opinion
piece not worth writing.

I do appreciate your comments.

Lori Piquet
Editor-in-chief
DevX.com

Craig Clearman <chclear@nospam.please> wrote:
>Hi Editors (and Senior Editor),
>
>re:
>http://www.devx.com/free/hotlinks/2001/ednote011901.asp
>
>I'm not writing this to debate whether the article is correct, merely
>to express my disappointment with the tone of some of the points in
>the editorial. Your Senior Editor's comments were obviously snarky --
>I really don't see how you could consider them to be useful or
>appropriate to the debate. Russell's comments on Karl's site could, at
>best, be considered a left-handed compliment. His comments on
>"existing VB experts" seriously downgraded any thought I had to taking
>him seriously.
>
>Sadly, it also downgrades my respect for DevX.
>
>I've become less and less enthusiastic over DevX due to a few of your
>more recent articles. The articles you commissioned for theCore were
>obviously bad enough. This editorial drives your standards even lower.
>At least theCore attempted to sound professional. Some passages in the
>above article fall way under the bar of professional.
>
>My own rhetorical question: is this really the image you wish to
>project? Are you trying to become more "edgy?" I certainly think you
>are doing yourself a disservice. I can not really imagine that
>professional developers enjoy reading articles and comments like
>these. You will drive them away.
>
>Ciao, Craig
>

[Phil Weber]

> Opinion pieces rarely sit well with everyone; in fact, in
> a very real way, an opinion piece that everyone agrees
> with is an opinion piece not worth writing.

Lori: One seemingly valid objection raised by some is that Russell's piece
appeared under the heading "Featured Articles" on the DevX home page, so it
wasn't obvious to them that it was intended as an editorial. Might we label
editorials and opinion pieces more clearly, perhaps physically segregating
them from technical content? Thanks.
---
Phil Weber
DevX.com, Inc.

[Bill McCarthy]

Hi Lori,

First, as others have said here, in the future could such articles be
labeled clearly as "opinion" etc.

Secondly, I was disappointed that the article seeemd, *IMO*, to lack
technical merit. Russell tried to argue his point by mentioning some of the
technical issues he had seen raised in the newsgroups, however the
arguements he made were devoid of technical merit. I posted here some foolow
ups on the technical issues, unfortunately Russell has yet to reply to them.

Thirdly, (or should that be finally <g>) I disagree with your interpretation
of Russell's intent. I certainly can't say what his intent was, but I
thought there were some simple rules about articles that show the intent of
the article.

The opening paragraph, which sets the tome for the article (that is what an
opening paragraph is meant to do, is it not ?) says "that some VB experts
claim Microsoft has abandoned VB developers" It then does on in the second
paragraph to quote "some VB experts". Then after presenting his attempt to
address some of the technical issues in psuedo point form, the article
resumes with the "There Are No Experts Anymore" section.
The opening line of which claims "Here's the real source of the complaints I
described at the start. " Now the complaints he described at the start were
attributed to some particular VB experts or if you choose to ignore that we
can assume it is applied to all those VB experts who raised the complaints.
But it does not, in the context of the article, imply that it is regarding
all experts.

He claims that the "real source" of the complaints about VB.NET are not
about technical issues but about those individuals loss of expertise.
Furthermore, he clearly excludes himself from that catergory by stating he
"sympathises" with them.

In summation, I found the article totally void of technical merit. I also
thought the article to be very offensive. If Russell wants to try to address
the technical points he should do so without saying that those who raise
objections are only doing so because their expertise is being threatened.







"Lori Piquet" <piquet@devx.com> wrote in message
news:3a722d28$1@news.devx.com...
>
> Hi Craig,
> I wanted to address your comments on the article's tone. I think the point
> that you're making here is that you felt Russell was trying to discredit
> (or poke fun at?) those whose opinions he doesn't quite agree with on this
> matter. That is not a practice DevX would condone, and, in fact, I hope
that
> maybe after reading this reply you'll be less inclined to think this is
the
> case.
>
> For example, this line from the article about Karl's VB.NOT site:
> >>which (despite the music and the site's intention) is useful >>in
revealing
> the types of problems you're likely to encounter >>with .NET.
> Perhaps (I'm admittedly making assumptions here) you perceived that
comment
> as sarcastic. I don't think Russell will mind me saying here that he meant
> it quite literally. That is, Russell means exactly that he finds Karl's
site
> *is* useful in educating people about the biggest stumbling blocks they're
> likely to come across. No disrespect to Karl is intended there. In fact,
> I've just reread that one paragraph where Russell makes any specific
mention
> of individuals and I can't see anything but straightforward and very
level,
> unemotional statements.
> If those comments were perceived as "snarky" by you and others I know it
> was unintentional.
>
> The rest of the article is purposefully devoid of quotes and references to
> specific individuals for the precise reason that it would be
unprofessional
> and immaterial to talk about one person's arguments when in fact the point
> of Russell's editorial was to collect the most often heard arguments--from
> all sources--and to say why those arguments are not persuasive to him.
>
> Re: the comment on "existing VB developers." Here too I think you may be
> perceiving a snideness that did not exist in his mind when writing it. In
> fact, I think Russell would put every developer, himself included, in this
> boat. The point here is that because VB.NET is such a strong departure in
> so many ways, that everyone--regardless of their hard-earned
experience--ends
> up having to learn certain things over again; having some degree of this
> expertise rudely erased. And that's unfortunate. Not sarcastically
unfortunate.
> Really and truly sort of painful and frustrating.
>
> We are not trying to be more edgy. We are just trying to be more involved,
> more analytical. Opinion pieces rarely sit well with everyone; in fact, in
> a very real way, an opinion piece that everyone agrees with is an opinion
> piece not worth writing.
>
> I do appreciate your comments.
>
> Lori Piquet
> Editor-in-chief
> DevX.com
>

[Ray Mercer]

Lori,

I have to agree with others who feel this way ->

> Secondly, I was disappointed that the article seeemd, *IMO*, to lack
> technical merit. Russell tried to argue his point by mentioning some of
the
> technical issues he had seen raised in the newsgroups, however the
> arguements he made were devoid of technical merit.

Also Russell has yet to respond to the valid questions that others ->

> I posted here some foolow
> ups on the technical issues, unfortunately Russell has yet to reply to
them.

and I have posted here. If he is really trying to truly understand the
issues then why won't he respond to questions about his editorial here?

Best regards,
Ray Mercer
Microsoft MVP VB
Yokohama, Japan

[Zane Thomas]

Hi Lori,

Remember me? :-)

I have to say that I find it amusing that some of the people who are
getting all huffy about the perceived tone, lack of professionalism, etc
in Russell's article have hardly been models of decorum themselves in
vb.vb7 and elsewhere on the web. Personally I don't have much use for
disingenuous niceties, so that in and of itself really isn't the issue.
But it seems to me that people who are quick on the zinger-trigger
shouldn't cry foul, and bemoan lack of professionalism, when they're on
the receiving end.

That said, I think that there is a labeling issue which should get some
attention. Having learned of the article in question I went to
www.devx.com, quickly scanned down, saw the link and clicked on it. First
stop, the picture caption, where the fact that an editor was the author
wasn't lost on me.

However, going back and looking again I see that the editorial is listed
under Feature Articles. I can see how people have a legitimate complaint
about that. Once again the lines between technical content, editorial,
and advertisement have been blurred. I think it's probably in everyone's
best interest for the editors of devx, and whoever else is responsible, to
ensure that this sort of thing doesn't continue happening.


---
Ice Z - Straight Outta Redmond

[Dan Barclay]

Bill,

I agree completely. Aside from the lack of technical merit, he
completely misses the point.

>He claims that the "real source" of the complaints about VB.NET are not
>about technical issues but about those individuals loss of expertise.

The point is that if the language is not stable then our *code
investment* is trashed. Code investment is just the same as any other
asset.

>In summation, I found the article totally void of technical merit. I also
>thought the article to be very offensive. If Russell wants to try to address
>the technical points he should do so without saying that those who raise
>objections are only doing so because their expertise is being threatened.

Absolutely. Offensive in what he said, what he implied, how he said
it. To make matters completely unacceptable he didn't even mention
*me* <g>.

Dan
Language Stability is a *feature* I wish VB had!
(#6)

[Craig Clearman]

Hi Lori,

>>>which (despite the music and the site's intention) is useful
>>>in revealing the types of problems you're likely to encounter with .NET.

>Perhaps (I'm admittedly making assumptions here) you perceived that comment
>as sarcastic.

I think it would take a highly tortuous strand of logic for that
statement not to be meant as sarcastic.

Parsing it:

"despite the music..."

Okay. Maybe he was embarrassed to point people to a site that would
play Pink Floyd MIDI files. As such, he's warning them up-front.
Perhaps that's not a dig against the site, but the easier
interpretation would be that it is. After all, if he merely wanted to
warn people about the music, it would have been far easier to simply
point them to the URL that does not include the music.

"...and the site's intention"

I think the site's intention is to inform VB programmers about the
losses that will come with VB.NET.

Obviously, Russell thinks differently. What does he think the site's
intention is? I certainly have my assumptions, but he doesn't make it
clear. He is implying something less than altruistic, though. This is
the first point in the article that I was complaining about.
Essentially, he has said, "despite what the writer wanted to do, he
has created something useful (amazingly)".

Compare the following clauses:

"which is useful in revealing the types of problems you're likely to
encounter with .NET."

and

"which (despite the music and the site's intention) is useful in
revealing the types of problems you're likely to encounter with .NET."

One is straightforward and unemotional. The other is not. Clearly, we
are seeing a left-handed compliment here. In truth, I would expect any
editor to pull out such offending references. The fact that is was not
done here is surprising. The fact that you defend it by saying that
Russell Jones was sincere amazes me.

Ciao, Craig

[Todd B - Agendum Software]

Bill,

After reading your break down on the article, I now see why some are a bit
upset over the language he used. Like Lori, I was also trying to figure
out why so many people were so upset. I read the article thinking of it as
almost as if someone were simply thinking out loud instead of writing an
editorial piece.

I have no opinion one way or the other about the articles content but thanks
to your more detailed breakdown, I now understand why some feel as they do.

Isn't it amazing how each person can read the same words yet get a different
meaning from them!?
--
Sincerely,

Todd B - CEO - Agendum Software
http://www.AgendumSoftware.com | Mailto:ToddB@AgendumSoftware.com
(608) 837-6736 (419) 821-9599


"Bill McCarthy" <Bill_McC@iprimus.com.au> wrote in message
news:3a728031@news.devx.com...
> Hi Lori,
>
> First, as others have said here, in the future could such articles be
> labeled clearly as "opinion" etc.
>
> Secondly, I was disappointed that the article seeemd, *IMO*, to lack
> technical merit. Russell tried to argue his point by mentioning some of
the
> technical issues he had seen raised in the newsgroups, however the
> arguements he made were devoid of technical merit. I posted here some
foolow
> ups on the technical issues, unfortunately Russell has yet to reply to
them.
>
> Thirdly, (or should that be finally <g>) I disagree with your
interpretation
> of Russell's intent. I certainly can't say what his intent was, but I
> thought there were some simple rules about articles that show the intent
of
> the article.
>
> The opening paragraph, which sets the tome for the article (that is what
an
> opening paragraph is meant to do, is it not ?) says "that some VB experts
> claim Microsoft has abandoned VB developers" It then does on in the second
> paragraph to quote "some VB experts". Then after presenting his attempt
to
> address some of the technical issues in psuedo point form, the article
> resumes with the "There Are No Experts Anymore" section.
> The opening line of which claims "Here's the real source of the complaints
I
> described at the start. " Now the complaints he described at the start
were
> attributed to some particular VB experts or if you choose to ignore that
we
> can assume it is applied to all those VB experts who raised the
complaints.
> But it does not, in the context of the article, imply that it is regarding
> all experts.
>
> He claims that the "real source" of the complaints about VB.NET are not
> about technical issues but about those individuals loss of expertise.
> Furthermore, he clearly excludes himself from that catergory by stating he
> "sympathises" with them.
>
> In summation, I found the article totally void of technical merit. I also
> thought the article to be very offensive. If Russell wants to try to
address
> the technical points he should do so without saying that those who raise
> objections are only doing so because their expertise is being threatened.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "Lori Piquet" <piquet@devx.com> wrote in message
> news:3a722d28$1@news.devx.com...
> >
> > Hi Craig,
> > I wanted to address your comments on the article's tone. I think the
point
> > that you're making here is that you felt Russell was trying to discredit
> > (or poke fun at?) those whose opinions he doesn't quite agree with on
this
> > matter. That is not a practice DevX would condone, and, in fact, I hope
> that
> > maybe after reading this reply you'll be less inclined to think this is
> the
> > case.
> >
> > For example, this line from the article about Karl's VB.NOT site:
> > >>which (despite the music and the site's intention) is useful >>in
> revealing
> > the types of problems you're likely to encounter >>with .NET.
> > Perhaps (I'm admittedly making assumptions here) you perceived that
> comment
> > as sarcastic. I don't think Russell will mind me saying here that he
meant
> > it quite literally. That is, Russell means exactly that he finds Karl's
> site
> > *is* useful in educating people about the biggest stumbling blocks
they're
> > likely to come across. No disrespect to Karl is intended there. In fact,
> > I've just reread that one paragraph where Russell makes any specific
> mention
> > of individuals and I can't see anything but straightforward and very
> level,
> > unemotional statements.
> > If those comments were perceived as "snarky" by you and others I know it
> > was unintentional.
> >
> > The rest of the article is purposefully devoid of quotes and references
to
> > specific individuals for the precise reason that it would be
> unprofessional
> > and immaterial to talk about one person's arguments when in fact the
point
> > of Russell's editorial was to collect the most often heard
arguments--from
> > all sources--and to say why those arguments are not persuasive to him.
> >
> > Re: the comment on "existing VB developers." Here too I think you may be
> > perceiving a snideness that did not exist in his mind when writing it.
In
> > fact, I think Russell would put every developer, himself included, in
this
> > boat. The point here is that because VB.NET is such a strong departure
in
> > so many ways, that everyone--regardless of their hard-earned
> experience--ends
> > up having to learn certain things over again; having some degree of this
> > expertise rudely erased. And that's unfortunate. Not sarcastically
> unfortunate.
> > Really and truly sort of painful and frustrating.
> >
> > We are not trying to be more edgy. We are just trying to be more
involved,
> > more analytical. Opinion pieces rarely sit well with everyone; in fact,
in
> > a very real way, an opinion piece that everyone agrees with is an
opinion
> > piece not worth writing.
> >
> > I do appreciate your comments.
> >
> > Lori Piquet
> > Editor-in-chief
> > DevX.com
> >
>
>
>

[Nancy Folsom]

In article <i4sa7t49bbtgu6u3adqa4s7jr66j2qgssf@4ax.com>,
chclear@nospam.please says...
> Hi Lori,
>
> >>>which (despite the music and the site's intention) is useful
> >>>in revealing the types of problems you're likely to encounter with .NET.
>
> >Perhaps (I'm admittedly making assumptions here) you perceived that comment
> >as sarcastic.
>
> I think it would take a highly tortuous strand of logic for that
> statement not to be meant as sarcastic.
>
> Parsing it:
>
> "despite the music..."
>
> Okay. Maybe he was embarrassed to point people to a site that would
> play Pink Floyd MIDI files. As such, he's warning them up-front.
> Perhaps that's not a dig against the site, but the easier
> interpretation would be that it is.

Okay, I've had it. Who the **** are we kidding here? Some people love
Karl's music and some don't. He's been teased about it before and he
responded with his usual <cough> aplomb. I'm having a hard time
believing he's really bent outta shape this time over an ubelievably
innocuous comment.

Can you please try and find something real to be in a snit over?

--
Nancy
So that all can benefit from the discussion,
please post all followups to the newsgroup.

[Craig Clearman]

Hi Nancy,

>Okay, I've had it. Who the **** are we kidding here?

You are not in the off ramp.

>I'm having a hard time believing he's really bent outta shape this
>time over an ubelievably innocuous comment.

I have not suggested anything of the sort.

>Can you please try and find something real to be in a snit over?

I'm sorry that you did not like my message.

Ciao, Craig

[Nancy Folsom]

In article <airi7tknac4c45m43lvv86im4mnh87r7kh@4ax.com>,
chclear@nospam.please says...
> Hi Nancy,
>
> >Okay, I've had it. Who the **** are we kidding here?
>
> You are not in the off ramp.

Golly. You're right. I meant "heck."

--
Nancy
So that all can benefit from the discussion,
please post all followups to the newsgroup.

[Karl E. Peterson]

Hi Nancy --

> Okay, I've had it. Who the **** are we kidding here? Some people love
> Karl's music and some don't.

Heh, the "fan mail" _still_ runs 50:1 in favor. Go figure. <g>

> I'm having a hard time believing he's really bent outta shape this time
> over an ubelievably innocuous comment.

True fact. Fwiw, I'm not "bent" at all. <g> I laughed at the column, showing it the
respect it deserved. DevX is going to extraordinary lengths in its attempt to
tarnish a previously reputable name. Now, that's a **** cryin' shame, but not
something to get "bent" over. (Microsoft seems to think it has exclusive domain in
that realm, anyway. <vbg>)

Actually factually, I could have *no greater* support than that provided by such an
obviously biased suckass piece of <spit>opinion</spit>. When the facts can't be
argued, attack the "opponent" personally, right? I *always* consider it a victory
when it gets to that point. Don't you? :-)

Thanks... Karl
--
http://www.mvps.org/vb

[Nancy Folsom]

In article <3a79c4cc$1@news.devx.com>, karl@mvps.org says...
> Hi Nancy --
>
> > Okay, I've had it. Who the **** are we kidding here? Some people love
> > Karl's music and some don't.
>
> Heh, the "fan mail" _still_ runs 50:1 in favor. Go figure. <g>

Yeah, well, who said the masses are arbiters of good taste?

> > I'm having a hard time believing he's really bent outta shape this time
> > over an ubelievably innocuous comment.
>
> True fact. Fwiw, I'm not "bent" at all. <g>

I knew you weren't a crybaby.

> Actually factually, I could have *no greater* support than that provided by such an
> obviously biased suckass piece of <spit>opinion</spit>. When the facts can't be
> argued, attack the "opponent" personally, right? I *always* consider it a victory
> when it gets to that point. Don't you? :-)

Don't I what? Still think the music sux? Yeah. <beg>

--
Nancy
So that all can benefit from the discussion,
please post all followups to the newsgroup.