[comp.compilers] Re: Introspection/Reflection

[adonovan@imerge.co.uk]

>> The definitions are unhelpful, pretentious, often incorrect and laden with >> poorly-thought-out political ramblings.
>
> After your message, I re-reading my page, decided that indeed it > needed much of a facelift, and rewrote it completely, including the > correction of a few bugs in the definitions on the other Glossary > page. I hope that if you will come back to my page, you find it > better. Anyway, criticism is better sent directly to me (if possible > with sufficient precision as for incorrections), so I can enhance > the page.
>
> As for the political side and "pretentious" tone, I fully endorse it; and of > course I believe it's not as poorly thought out as you say, although I admit > it's too often written in incorrect quick draft mode and not proof-read. In > fact I don't believe in such thing as "neutrality" in opinions or thought; > thought is made of commitment. However, I do consider it a bug (that I am > grateful to be reported) when the reader cannot make a clear difference > between what is common knowledge and what is merely my personal opinion.




I fully agree that there is no such thing as neutrality in opinions or thought; scientists in particular have long been fooled into thinking (and fooled themselves, and other people) that there is such a thing.

However some of the more overtly political statements are extremely contentious: take a look at:

"Communism"

"A political theory that, from a static view of the world, and outrageous rationalism, denies liberalism, proposes centralization instead, and encourages revolution to achieve it."

Hegelian and Marxist theory is noted for its insistence on the dynamism of the world, and rejects the bourgeois "the world has always been this way" ideology. So this statement is plain wrong -- no matter what your take is on the old USSR. Speaking of which, for the multitude of serious faults in soviet-style communism, you can hardly argue that the introduction of the free market there has made people free or happier. In fact an increasingly popular opinion is that the free market is the "ruin of many countries and billions of lives": just take a look at what happened in Seattle yesterday. By the way, have you ever actually read any Marx?

"Liberalism"

This is indeed a thorny philosophy to define, yet I would start by saying that its essential foundations are the ideas of "reason" and of "freedom", yet liberalism (somewhat contradictarily) has no rational basis for itself. Historically, liberalism has tended to mean working within the existing political framework (i.e. free-market capitalism in the West), with the state enforcing laws and nothing else, and it fails to recognise that these laws are not invented by a supreme benign being, but by statesmen responding to their material circumstances.

Anyway, I could talk for hours on this (I don't like the medium of email for such discussions), but that's not my point. What I am trying to prove is that among computer scientists and engineers there is a broad spectrum of political leaning, from fascist, through pro-capitalist conservative, liberal, and  social democratic, to revolutionary socialist. The point is that cooperation on engineering projects does not require political concordance at that level, and by making it appear part of your project manifesto, you deter people (like me) who would otherwise be interested in the technical aspects of the project, which, I believe, can be expressed without recourse to such highly divisive political issues. 

Hell, if I made my politics integral to my project notes, no-one would want to work with me ;-)

alan



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