Is Top The New Richard Kulisz
Is Top The New Richard KuliszI have been defending top's anonymous presence here on the C2 because we need many perspectives to bring about synthesis in problem solving. However, top's contributions have become more strident in their nature, tending not to bring about any new understanding but to invoke the ire of the Wiki community. Now I find myself questioning whether top is really a contributor of value here or just a naysayer who wishes to argue endlessly rather than add anything new.
All of this sounds awfully familiar, does it not?
Top is an uneducated, irrational, small-minded, arrogant, bigoted crank who (like most cranks) has utterly deluded himself about many things - that he's an empiricist, that he knows 'true' science, that he represents practitioners, that he has 'fans', that the straw cows he attacks are sacred. Below, he evidences a few delusions with such claims as "empiricists are more likely to agree with my material" (a HandWaving assertion made without a scrap of empirical evidence). He whines, "I don't think I am evil" as though evil people typically would - not that he is evil, but that complaint is one more piece of evidence that he's irrational (as if you needed any more; AssumeStupidityNotMalice).
Nonetheless, Top doesn't treat anyone nearly as badly as does RK. Compare the rants on [http://richardkulisz.blogspot.com/], and especially the responses to comments. RK is an intelligent, logical, honest, blunt, hateful, arrogant, narcissistic, misogynistic, emotional, childish bully who wants the best for mankind (in an ends-justify-means sort of way). I'd rather have a conversation with RK about programming than TopMind, because I'd actually gain something from it. But talking to RK is a bit like talking to Dark Star's Bomb #20: you can engage in an intelligent and interesting conversation for a while, but, in the end - no matter what you do - he eventually misinterprets something you say, thinks himself god, and explodes.
RK and Top both have good ideas. They are both visionary. They both have a penchant for HandWaving about VaporWare and complaining about tools that actually work today - this is common among visionaries that never implement their ideas. They both make me wish to invoke RemoteStrangulationProtocol. They're both very arrogant (but I'd estimate TopMind at the normal level for stupidly arrogant people, whereas RK is at a level begging psychiatric help and psychopharmacological relief).
Where TopMind goes wrong is presenting arguments. Whatever skills he once possessed in reasoning and comprehension (to get through university) are decades atrophied because he doesn't maintain his education and doesn't actively exercise his reasoning. He attempts to skate by with HandWaving and RedHerrings and ShiftingTheBurdenOfProof and a bunch of bad habits that look a lot like fraud, sophistry, and trolling. In my honest opinion, what he does isn't so different from him fucking himself repeatedly up his own ass with his head, in public. (And the people trying to stop him just end up covered in his shit. Look at the pages where people argue with Top - they're disgusting. Imagine trying to stop a pale hairy man with shit-covered hair and ears from rutting with his prostate from an anatomically impossible position in a public venue, and perhaps you'll skip the next few arguments with TopMind and find something less wasteful to do with your hours.) Since Top can't do the math or argument, he shouldn't even try. He'd be more successful presenting just his ideas and intuitions and experience reports - which are often interesting.
If TopMind ever actually implements his ideas - not just tries, but actually slogs through the difficult parts - he'd be a lot more respectable. HandWaving about such projects leaves a lot of room for arrogance to grow, but actually sitting down in front of the code and discovering which compromises one must make to get the darn ideas implemented is (in my experience) quite humbling. I've tossed more than one BigIdea project to the junk pile after bringing them towards prototype phase or discovering something missing in my thinking.
In the mean time, I'm going to ignore Top's perfectly natural umbrage at my response and go enjoy a logic game. When I respect the guy more than a shitstain on the wiki, perhaps I'll apologize.
Just by the way, topper's assertion that he's an empiricist fails under scrutiny. When challenged with the findings of giants in the industry he immediately claims "argument by authority" or some such noise, as if the professionals who have already gathered up the data to support their claims are somehow less informed than he. For this reason alone he flunks that test.
Maybe I'm somehow super-delusional and imagining things, but in my world you have NOT done such. You have not presented self-standing logic and empirical studies to back your side of the story. One of us is flat wrong. Things like thin tables and no-nulls should be easy to present scenarios representing common downsides, but for some reason I can't get those out of you no matter how hard I try and try and try. You keep changing the subject, such as my not implementing ideas like SmeQl. My contentious statements are generally not dependent on those existing; ranting about implementing is a straw-man. (More on this later.)
Something is wrong somewhere. If you presented self-standing logic and I don't seem to "get it", then rework it to be more clear, more like an itemized geometry proof (ItemizedClearLogic). Refine it to a purer form, removing side issues and fuzzy English. Perhaps you are just a bad writer. Your writing style is very odd to me, almost alien. If you are presenting great, self-standing evidence, then I am simply not seeing it despite trying and trying. Something about your writing is too subtle for me or something. Something you think is explicit and obvious may not be. - t
[Using language like "thin tables" is why you cannot be an empiricist. You should use scientific or mathematical terms like "normalized" rather than quack/crank terms like thin tables. At least explain ThinTable? on some wiki page, but even if you do.. using that term may turn away people who detect it as a buzz word. Tables aren't bad just because someone normalized the table, are they? Is that what you mean by thin table? What about a table that just doesn't have very much data in it and is thin? What do you mean by thin table? In what situation? Loads of tables are different shapes and sizes.]
[Common downsides of normalized "thin tables" is that they take more time to think about; you need to actually think about normalization to do it, and thinking is hard. Common downsides of non normalized "fat tables" is that they aren't normalized, and therefore fat tables more like an excel spreadsheet. MySQL older versions are just glorified spreadsheets and shouldn't even really be called a database. However I reject terms like fat tables or thin tables because it dumbs our industry down quite a bit, and sometimes even normalized tables are still quite wide (fat), or they can be quite thin - it depends on the data. You complain about people having odd writing style, along with people using fuzzy English; but that is EXACTLY and PRECISELY the problem with your English, top. You use crank/crackpot terms like Side Flags (which virtually doesn't exist on google, I looked it up) along with "thin tables", and hip terms like "grokability". Are you an alien?]
Is language really the main problem? I avoided more specific terms such as "5th normal form" or whatnot because I am not ready to draw a hard line in the sand because often things have to be considered on a case-by-case basis. I was commenting on tendencies, not absolute lines in that topic. Specific scenarios were used when appropriate, and "thin table" is a generalized description of tendencies of such scenarios. (Plus, those definitions may have some fuzz in them.) Article headlines are meant to give a general summary, not be court-proof legalistic complete statements. This is a common practice (and understandable in many cases), so why are you targeting just me? I can't just force over-simplification if it's not "there" in reality. Scenarios and rough titles to describe a group of scenarios will have to do for now. I can't just say "4th normal form is always good but 5th normal form is always bad" because that's NOT my opinion. In general I try to focus on specific scenarios when possible so that terminology is not the driving factor, at least not at the scenario level. Perhaps after many scenarios we could start to formulate more precise patterns and form an agree-able working definition. Your expectation of a compact description/term for every assertion or viewpoint up front is not realistic. It's almost comparable to trying to shoehorn everyone's political viewpoint into "conservative" or "progressive". They can be used for a rough picture, but the devil's in the detail as far as "encoding" one's political viewpoints with any degree of accuracy.
[But you can still have a thin table that is not normalized, so please explain what you mean by ThinTable? (maybe on that wiki page?). For example if you have a table just with an address column and nothing else - the address may contain the city and zip code inside the address column, instead of being normalized further so that you can search the cities and zips separately. It's a thin table with just one column: address (long multi line address).]
I think I addressed that before. I'll see if I can find the topic. Generally the debate was not on the sub-column level.
[By subcolumn do you mean columns within columns? Like having a zip and a city in a single cell instead of splitting it into two? ]
The discussion was generally which table to put a given column in, not the contents of columns.
"Maybe I'm somehow super-delusional and imagining things ..."
Could be. Have you made an effort to reflect on this and consider it as a realistic possibility, as opposed to merely being a rhetorical comment?
Have you ever considered the possibility that it's you?
"Things like thin tables and no-nulls should be easy to present scenarios representing common downsides, but for some reason I can't get those out of you no matter how hard I try and try and try."
Funny, that. My perception is that we try and try and try to give you reasons and scenarios and cases and descriptions and everything we can think of to show you that (e.g.) thin tables and no-nulls are a good idea, and whilst I don't expect you to necessarily agree with them -- you always have the option to (at least) say you don't agree and leave it at that, though it would be nice if you provided sound counter-points -- you seem unable to appreciate our points at all and endlessly demand further evidence in an almost stick-fingers-in-ears-and-shout-lalalala way, yet never supply any except the vaguest HandWaving to support your views. Have you considered the possibility that your inability to grasp things that are clear to us is due to some failing of your own?
I'm sorry, but your evidence is weak. It seems almost completely detached from day-to-day reality, as if you've never left a university lab and worked in the real world. If you wanted to convince me, and the majority who don't use thin tables and non-nulls, then try using:
Likewise, you seem almost completely detached from day-to-day reality, as if you've never left hacking entry-level "business reporting" applications and had to be responsible for large-scale mission-critical software development of any kind.
As far as PayrollExampleTwo, there were several domain-specific issues that cannot be answered without direct long-term observation of the domain, and others that came down to WetWare, such as why one would be more likely to edit the wrong case block versus editing the wrong method. I don't see slam-dunk evidence that points either way. And it doesn't really have enough variations to stretch each approach to make much difference in my opinion: the differences would be minor. My conclusion is that it raised more questions than it answered, and the originator generally seemed to not disagree with that assessment. - t
And ComplexityOfOutputtingDuplicateTuplesInTutorialDee is comparing a straw man. What I propose wouldn't need a "duplicate" keyword. (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the strawman feature was unintentional.) It's an interesting philosophical debate about tool design and feature choice trade-offs, but there is not the kind of measurements I suggest to make a solid case. (It would be nice to clean up these debates into clear sections for each argument made by each side.) - t
What specifically is your complaint? I don't think I am bad and evil, so why do you think I'm bad and evil? I don't get it. It appears to me that it's merely a battle between empiricists and authoritarians. If you are an empiricist, then you are more likely to agree with my material and complaints, and vice verse. I'd also suggest that a clear-cut code of conduct be adopted before booting me off. The authoritarian side seems pretty rude to me, and yet WikiZens rarely complain. They delete content they don't like and insult me personally non-stop. Yet I am the bad guy? It makes no sense to me. They inject their HobbyHorse's, such as CapabilitySecurityModel all over the place and nobody says a word. Yet if I mention TOP, I am jumped all over. From my perspective, it's a double standard. Look how I was treated on BagAtational. Yes, I did cuss him out, but he kept pushing and pushing with ever childish excuses for deleting my content. I deserve a fair trail and even standards.
Maybe if you showed me numeric metrics of why my "sins" are greater than theirs. For example, show that I cuss once every 200 words and they only cuss once every 700 words, or that I delete 50 out of every 1000 of their words and they only delete one of my words every 3000 words, or that I personally insult them every 400 words and they only personally insult me every 2000 words. Get the picture? (I believe they "sin" far more than me, by the way.) If I see such evidence and can verify the counts, then maybe I'll have an aporia moment and correct myself and my delusion that there's a double standard may disappear. You already know that I response to numeric evidence, so use that to tune my wiki behavior by making it clear what I'm doing wrong.
Somebody once claimed, "Trouble just seems to follow you wherever you go; you agitate people" (paraphrased). I'm not sure that's a "sin". For example, Darwin also agitated people. I'm not saying I'm the same caliber, only that attracting "heat" by itself should not be a wiki sin. It needs more dissection to figure out the real underlying cause.
I don't intentionally do bad things, honest (other than occasional cussing out of frustration). I just want to make the software world better by bringing science and empiricism into it (or maybe a realization it's all about WetWare and not some magic universal math). Maybe someday you'll join me and the IT world will be one. --top
Re: "If TopMind ever actually implements his ideas - not just tries, but actually slogs through the difficult parts - he'd be a lot more respectable. HandWaving about such projects leaves a lot of room for arrogance to grow, but actually sitting down in front of the code and discovering which compromises one must make to get the darn ideas implemented is (in my experience) quite humbling. I've tossed more than one BigIdea project to the junk pile after bringing them towards prototype phase or discovering something missing in my thinking. "
That's probably true with your "logic" also, using ItemizedClearLogic. And again, most of my counter-claims don't depend on the implementation of things like SmeQl. Such may be an example of the failures of your usage of "impressionistic logic" instead of something more solid and transparent like ItemizedClearLogic. --top
Re: "When challenged with the findings of giants in the industry..." (Emph. added)
It turns out many of those are opinion pieces. I have invited others to turn such writings into ItemizedClearLogic (if they actually see iron-clad logic in them), but they flop, and project their failure back onto me. Being a big name does NOT get you a Get-Out-Of-Logic-For-Free card. Further, when I point out that IBM and Oracle chose certain database practices, you dismiss it. It looks like hypocrisy to me. -t
Sorry, top, that's bullshit. You won't even bother to spend ten seconds on Google to find the statistical backup that these professionals have published in abundance, so you call it "opinion" and dismiss their findings as inconsequential. You are an ass, and that is a professional "opinion."
Yeah right. Link it here!
Google. Search for ["zero defects" studies] in the last year and get "About 3,520 results" back. You want me to list all those?
By the way, that search took all of ten seconds to set up and a few more to see the results. What, you can't do that yourself? Now, that's laziness.
I have no idea what you are talking about in terms of what technology claim this backs. (I would think that defects-per-dollar would be a more practical search topic being that zero defects is probably possible or approachable with infinite resources. Plus, it's well-known that customers often value features over quality.) -t
Here we go again with top and his "well known" BS, not quoting anything like studies or research or anything published. Thanks, top, for proving once again that you deserve a TenSeven.
I thought it was an agreed-upon wiki consensus. See WorseIsBetter and BugFreeDoesntSell (topics I did not create), which don't seem to have a lot of challenges. My apologies for not making the consensus assumption explicit in my writing above. But, the question about the above context is still open.
[1] I agree that "mission critical" (MC) applications pay more. I don't think it's so much because they are more valuable (in the longer run) or more skilled, but rather the risk of getting the wrong person in MC and turnover is higher to the company, or perceived higher. Large bureaucracies tend to "play it safe" out of institutional habit. You are more likely to get fired from a screw-up than get rewarded for an improvement in MC. Thus, companies pay more to reduce risk, not necessarily because of absolute value or more net skills. I've personally had one diplomatic snafu erase 5 kudos. Related: ChoosingSatisfactionOverMoney
See: ShouldTopBeBanned, WikiAsReference, PatternsOfClaimsAgainstTop
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