Anonymous User

Co-opting this page to give Anon/Nomad/blueyonder a neutral HomePage for discussion.

Questions for Anon:

What is your interest in WardsWiki? What is your motivation for spending time here? I ask because this is ostensibly a programming forum, but I can't recall any contributions you have made in that area.

I would rather get to know you than fight with you. -- IanOsgood

There are such contributions. I openly posted several versions of a C routine for the Coding Challenge in BinarySearch. My last score was 35/36, but no-one has pointed out a bug in the code. Perhaps I didn't allow for the use of obscure compilation switches or non-standard headers, but almost anyone could "fail" on such technical matters. If you can throw light on that, please do. Or are you unwilling to discuss software matters?

Thanks. I remember that now. (At the time, I declined to accept the challenge. I tend to write my own BinarySearch where needed, but never in a context general enough to require correctness at the extreme corner cases. But then, I'm a ForthLanguage weirdo.)

I also sympathize with your frustration in that argument. I remember being frustrated in the ACM collegiate programming contests when one of my problems would come back as failed. That kind of setup, with an English specification but an effectively hidden real specification and narrow channels of feedback led me to work using Agile processes and work on OpenSource projects, both where communication is more open. I often wish specs were presented as executable test suites rather than in English. -- IanOsgood

Note that the author specifically insisted that I email my code to him and then secretly decided to ignore such an email from me.

• And of course you have no idea why I chose not to process your email. You have no idea that the 50K of "discussion" that you generated pissed me off no end. You have no idea that you ignored my explicit request not to post code to the wiki. You have no idea. Period.
• It's comments such as these that I call slurs. You are thoroughly misrepresenting the situation and making it look like I have mistreated you. I have not. I have responded in a particularly restrained manner given the annoyance, anger and frustration that you have caused.
• Ian, by all means engage him in conversation, but I countenance you against taking what he says at face value.

There was a lot of discussion relating to your challenge. At the time, it didn't include any statement that you were annoyed or angry about it. If you were, your restraint made it impossible for me to know.

You're welcome to change your mind and say so. By keeping your decision secret, you knowingly converted your earlier statements on Wiki and your own site into false promises.

FWIW, I recall 217.137 participated in CeeProgramsForBeginners and CeeProgramsForBeginnersDiscussion a couple years ago. I believe that's Anon. -- Eliz