Episode 90 - Salami-ROM

[Rod C. Johnson]

As a linguist, I have to tell you that you are way off on this...

Damn Fab... You beat me to the punch by three minutes

To go off on a tangent, I would be interested to hear what made you decide to study linguistics.

[Fab]

Well I'm "just" end user - although even that causes shock sometimes, woman and Linux, what a weird combination.

I dunno why that is... I confess to react different to women on the context of F/OSS as well (and I am kinda ashamed for it). For me it is more a "wow! a woman... cool! We have to make sure she's treated fairly..." kind of way. Although that also skews everything so it might be bad as well...

while I don't end every sentence with btw I'm woman, I also don't want to especially hide that.

Which is absolutely your right. Forcing you or even suggesting you should do different is kinda disguised discrimination. Forcing someone to self-censor themselves reeks too much of the situation of blacks before the civil rights movement to me....

I actually made little research how people see my irc nick (well I asked from the two guys who happened to be active at that moment ) and apparently it's ambiguous... and there I thought I had chosen nice feminine nick for myself.

I actually reacted like that at first as well...

[Fab]

To go off on a tangent, I would be interested to hear what made you decide to study linguistics.

Well, I study English. Linguistics is just a sub-field of that. Doing only Linguistics would be way to boring for me I think. And the way I hate Chomsky, I would never get very far either....

Also, I only really studied the aspects of English (BE/AusE, that is) and I (naturally) know some stuff about German. You couldn't really say I "always had a knack for languages", but I always had somehat of a knack for German and English. I failed miserably at French and Latin.

[Fab]

I suppose I am not convinced by the analogy between a file indexing service and a torrent tracker.

A torrent tracker is a file indexing service! Torrents are files!

[Rod C. Johnson]

Also, I only really studied the aspects of English (BE/AusE, that is) and I (naturally) know some stuff about German

I failed miserably (well I passed anyway) at German for the two required years at uni. I really wish I had paid more attention to language then since it would serve me much better now than the chemistry I took. I bet your reading list is interesting but they out to put a warning label on Chomsky's work.

[tacone]

A term usually means what most people think that term means.

As a linguist, I have to tell you that you are way off on this...

Perhaps, as terms often have a meaning based to their etymology. But common use often changes the meaning, at the point that dictionaries often have to update the terms descriptions. Not to talk about neologisms. And term meaning vary depending the context.
I may be way off, but that's how things really work. Walk into a software house and ask for a developer, see what you get.

[Fab]

Also, I only really studied the aspects of English (BE/AusE, that is) and I (naturally) know some stuff about German

I failed miserably (well I passed anyway) at German for the two required years at uni. I really wish I had paid more attention to language then since it would serve me much better now than the chemistry I took. I bet your reading list is interesting but they out to put a warning label on Chomsky's work.

Linguistic profs all love Chomsky. Me personally, I think he's full of crap. The whole Constructional Linguistics field is about as much use as watching potatoes grow....

[Dan]

Some level of elitism between devs is good I think, since its possible to prove some code is better, a bit of healthy competition is fine as long as its in good fun. Ofcourse you need to accommodate for newer devs and not go all elitist on them to start with.
Some devs just go too far in this direction and get very critical of others in general for not being as knowledgeable/experienced as them... hence assholes. ok Im sure there are many types of assholes but thats just one kind

Yeah perhaps competition breeds better code in the end. I can see that. Oh sorry I'm agreeing again.. damn me!! I mean, that's bullshit!!! what are you talking about?? Are you crazy?? grrr!!!

There are a lot more 'normal' people using linux these days so Id expect people will be less likely to be confronted by an elitist geek when getting help with linux.

*Edit*, you can call them 'contributors' - people who give back to the project in some way but not in code, I think we use this term to describe people who do all sorts of odd jobs to help.

Perhaps things are better now than they were and I'm reflecting my experiences of trying to get into the open source world 6 or 7 years ago. There are more "normal" people as you put it, using Linux these days. When I meet people and talk to them about Linux though I nearly always hear that they're scared by people in forums, mailing lists etc. They they've had some idiot heave a go at them for being stupid or asking the wrong question. I dunno how big an issue it is these days but the bad image still lingers. I also don't know how we can change that, it's not like we're a company with a PR budget and so on. It's really down to individuals to represent Linux properly and not act like asses. I'm preaching to the converted here though I know as everyone on our forum is very friendly and respectful of newcomers

[anagraph]

I suppose I am not convinced by the analogy between a file indexing service and a torrent tracker.

A torrent tracker is a file indexing service! Torrents are files!

A tracker doesn't index anything. The torrent files are uploaded by users, and the tracker facilitates connections between disparate users. Do you see the difference I am seeing?

[Rod C. Johnson]

Perhaps, as terms often have a meaning based to their etymology. But common use often changes the meaning, at the point that dictionaries often have to update the terms descriptions. Not to talk about neologisms. And term meaning vary depending the context.
I may be way off, but that's how things really work. Walk into a software house and ask for a developer, see what you get.

Ok so I get a bunch of guys (and gals) together and we all insist that 2+3=6. If enough people agree with us, we get to change our math definitions.

Just because a group, and a damn small one at that compared to everyone who speaks english, wants to redefine a word and insist that all others follow their convention doesn't convince me that they are correct.

In short, to develop something means to improve it. If someone donates their time and effort to the improvement, they are a developer. Does the improvement add value to the program? Of course it does. Is the popularity of Ubuntu today more the result of coders or folks who prettified and standardized the interface? It doesn't really matter does it? The end result is that the package is more useful.


p.s. not even 24 hours since the podcast and already at 4 pages of comments! I can't wait to listen