Patterns Of Claims Against Top

This is a summary of common complaints against WikiZen TopMind, and corresponding responses. Please keep long responses below the main list.

Top is usually and clearly wrong, giving dangerous ideas to readers
Response: This has not been demonstrated in a clear way, such as through ItemizedClearLogic. All are welcome to present their case. Differences of opinionss will happen. (See also "doesn't cite" below.) -t
Top does not keep up with and is not well-versed in many academic works and theories.
Response: This is largely true, but you don't need the original literature to prove your case in terms of "better" languages/tools, such as through the use of ItemizedClearLogic. ItemizedClearLogic doesn't need heavy academic language to work. Some may prefer to use a certain lingo set in debates, but tough luck: this is not an academics-only wiki. Nobody so far as made a strong case that academic language is necessary to provide a proof.[2]
Top wants to 'dumb down' programming because he himself doesn't want to keep up
Response: My observations are that in general the industry prefers a "mid-brow" level of skill requirements to aid in PlugCompatibleInterchangeableEngineers (see GreatLispWar). I'm just reporting my observations. Some WikiZens strongly disagree with this assessment. That's fine, but you don't have to make it personal. Otherwise, I may toss back the counter argument found in AreWeBiasedTowardLaborIntensive that academics or those who personally like advanced techniques want more pay or customers for using or mastering or teaching them, and thus push for their wider usage or demand. Your wallet or ego or personal preferences may likewise be biasing you, and thus both sides could lob bias criticisms at each other. Best we LetTheReaderDecide if our descriptions of the industry staffing patterns match the reader's own observations since there are no solid studies either way.[2]
Top is arrogant
Response: I don't know where this claim comes from. I don't claim that I am "great". If anything, those who claim that I am "clearly wrong" without clear evidence are the arrogant ones. It doesn't really matter anyhow: truth and lies don't care about the personality of their authors.
Top never finishes implementations of his pet languages or tools
Response: Most of the contentious issues don't depend on the existence or implementation of such tools. Thus, even if true, it's moot to the issues at hand.
Top doesn't respect experts in the field
Response: I focus on claims and logic, not the personalities behind them. Einstein's ideas deserve just as much scrutiny as Bozo the Clown's. ArgumentFromAuthority is weak.
Doesn't live up to own standards: Top has made some objective-sounding claims without providing ItemizedClearLogic or a OfficialCertifiedDoubleBlindPeerReviewedPublishedStudy, and therefore is a hypocrite.
Response: I sometimes do make offhanded claims that sound as if an objective truth is being claimed. However, if I refuse to fully justify them, that does not get you off the hook for doing the same. The difference is that I don't keep insisting I have objective evidence and harassing others and their content because I believe such statements so truthful. For the most part I believe that benefits of software languages and tools rest largely in WetWare, which is a "soft" immature science. That's not my fault, I'm just the messenger. Software design and maintenance is about brain productivity, not so much machines, which makes good science difficult to do. It happens "in the head" [1]. -t
Top is rude
Response: I try to be diplomatic and have improved over the years. However, if the other side grows rude, I will counter with rudeness of my own of approximately the same bite. However, I do not intentionally delete or mutilate others' content even if the other side goes that far.
Top's style generates too much friction on this wiki, and he should be banned.
Response: It takes two to tango. Controversy can be a good thing if it challenges people to think. I have asked for impartial moderators to volunteer to moderate debates to prevent personal attacks, keep both sides focused on the topic, etc. Unfortunately, no takers so far. (VolunteerWikiModerators)
Insists his "custom business applications" are the most important domain and that every tool should cater to it.
Response: While I do believe it to be a very large domain, I'm often content to LetTheReaderDecide if a given scenario or description of a domain fits his or her organization or experience and leave it at that. However, some of my detractors don't seem satisfied with LetTheReaderDecide and keep pushing the issue. See also CustomBusinessApplicationDefinition.
Top doesn't cite any solid evidence or research.
Response: NEITHER side does for the key issues. It's an AnecdoteImpasse. Research on the net benefit of software and software tool choices is sorely lacking. That's just the way it is; it's not my doing. Thus, we are left with indirect analysis. Specific narrow factors have been measured in some cases, but measuring one factor is not a replacement for measuring all factors that matter.
Top's observations on "typical developer" behavior doesn't match that of other WikiZens.
Response: A decent survey hasn't been done on this Wiki. I suspect some are mistaking "loudness" for quantity of people sharing an opinion. Some topics that I did not create, such as PlugCompatibleInterchangeableEngineers and DisciplineEnvy, appear to mirror many of my controversial observations. I should also point out that most of my observations are based on non-IT organizations or organizations with decentralized development. Such organizations tend to value domain skills and documentation/people skills roughly as much as raw technical skill, meaning they may sacrifice some tech ability to get the other factors, and/or the hiring decisions are made by more than just tech staff. I say LetTheReaderDecide if a description of org behavior matches their own shop or not. We don't have to bicker over "how developers really are". Perhaps both sides need to make their org assumptions clearer. -t
Top makes ThreadMesses
Response: It takes two to tango. I haven't seen an example of a comparable debate "done right". Past attempts to clean up topics failed in part because the other party disputed the classifications used to group items. Our world views shape how we classify and group things, and our world views are too far apart. I plead stumped on this issue and welcome specific and constructive criticism. Don't just say "X is bad!", that by itself is not helpful. Show X done right and explain why it's right. -t
To be continued...

I have the evidence against top. The evidence is of a nature of somebody attempting a couple of the ideas that top propounds and having to clean up after the resulting disaster. The evidence is of such a form that allows me to make this claim: Until a language is constructed and demonstrated viable (I do not say proven as I don't want to wait 5 years for a full-scale production test) that supports top's key ideas inline, that is to say either a much better relational language than SQL running on the database server -or- a better source language that compiles to SQL say a derivative of LinqToSql? without the abysmal performance -or- direct support for struct-functionpointer descent that is somehow not object-oriented -or- some kind of datarow-entity hardwared into the langauge; then top's ideas will not yield productivity even as good as the known mismatach between object-oriented and relational. --JoshuaHudson

That's not an area of primary contention, at least not in terms of a formal claim. Most of my claims or counter-claims don't require the existence of my pet tools, as described above. I would note that nobody has proven ANY query language objectively better than SQL or anything else, so far. I present SmeQl as merely a suggestion at this point. Related: HowOtherQueryLanguagesAddressSqlFlaws. --top

Get one up and running then we'll see.

Fine, but it's a side issue only.

I would be pleased if TopMind would take a year or two of vacation from this site. I would encourage others who see value in his technical contributions to neaten them up a little while he is gone. I doubt anyone would regret the removal of posts containing even a hint of flame bait, whether from top or anyone else. I have no intention of arguing this advice with top so not response is required. I know for sure that I feel this way and have felt so since top's arrival years ago. -- WardCunningham

I would ask that the originals be kept somewhere as reference. I'll store them myself if someone gives me advanced notice on which will be bulldozed. Thanks. --top

Ward, I apologize for the ThreadMess our debates often end up being. I never intended them to be that way and do feel bad for leaving a mess in your court-yard. I would re-factor them into something cleaner, but frankly I often cannot figure out the other side's position in order to rework it into a nice package or summary. They have a (to me) "alien" writing style that's hard for me to translate into something close to ItemizedClearLogic. It appears to be ArgumentFromAuthority, but this is not explicitly stated. I try to probe their responses with more questions to flesh out specifics, but doing such just seems to end up turning into personal bickering. I don't like it that way either, but cannot find an alternative. I've looked for example IT debates "done right" (or cleaned up right) to learn how to better approach these things, but have not found any for software design issues. It's easier for physical things when one is measuring against the physical world. The laws of physics are the anchor point. But software is about virtual worlds and the rules can be just about whatever we make them (as long as the output is acceptable) such that it lacks an anchor point. SoftwareGivesUsGodLikePowers, but this boundlessness seems to also cause epic frustration when trying to formalize metrics and apply science to software. --top

Also note that I would like to clarify some existing points in existing topics so that any re-translator or summarizing volunteer(s) can provide more accurate translations. -t

I'm curious, what happens if nobody is interested in cleaning up the ThreadMess and "angry" language? -t

Footnotes

[1] I do my best to explain the psychology or WetWare model(s) I use to justify or explain a decision choice I make. The model may still turn out wrong, but at least I have attempted to explain and document the "mechanics" and givens (assumptions) behind my decision. (See LispLacksVisualCues for examples.) Without a million-dollar budget for either side, this may be the best one can do. And I don't insist my WetWare models/assumptions are the One Truth. I'd be happy to evaluate decisions against alternative WetWare models/assumptions. I'm also okay with somebody offering anecdotal evidence such as "in my experience, developers tend to think/respond in such and such a way". However, one must respect counter anecdotes. Some WikiZens appear to get testy and suggest my experience is somehow invalid when I do such. It's best just to leave both sides' behavioral response anecdotes "on the table" and LetTheReaderDecide which anecdotes best match their own experience. -t

[2] I will admit that I am less likely to follow or "keep up" on a specific technology or theory if I suspect the industry won't value it. However, this does not mean that I don't study anything new, but rather when choosing among self-study options, I may select something for practical reasons rather than stretch my brain to the limits of abstraction, power of indirection, meta programming, etc. I focus my studies on what I feel the market demands. This may frustrate the academic crowd on this wiki because they want to apply and/or discuss such high-brow techniques, and I may not know its vocabulary. I do feel that many of the academic-tilted WikiZens don't understand that the market probably does not value their favorite high-brow technique, except for special niches perhaps. (See GreatLispWar.) I'm just the messenger. This wiki is for BOTH academic and practitioner topics. (I engage in MentalMasturbation, but FP is not high on my MM to-do list.) -t

See TopVsOthers, TopOnWhyTopIsHated

DecemberTwelve