Re: Its a bird, its a plane, its.. um, an Attribute based System?

Not to feed the troll, and I realize I'm late to this thread, but...

On Thursday 01 April 2010 07:20:07 pm thunk wrote:
> absolute last word from me forever on this as things are....

Probably a good thing.

I have to admit, I'm disappointed. I'd hoped maybe you'd be able to give us=
 an=20
idea, at some point, of what you're talking about.

> my lessons:
>=20
> 1.  While the TOPIC still seems appropriate to a Ruby Discussions
> group, the Medium is not "conducive" to communicating on a bigger
> project.

Actually, it is, if you're capable of communicating WTF that bigger project=
=20
is.

> 2. I have developed my own (tarzan) vocabulary to deal with a non-
> trivial problem based on what I have seen that seems to fit best,
> without reading about this or having anybody to chat about.

Having your own vocabulary can make things difficult if you're using terms=
=20
that already have established meanings.

That said, I'm not sure that was the main issue. The main issue is that you=
=20
not only concocted your own whole new vocabulary, but you were unable to=20
define pretty much any term you were using in plain English, or in plain Ru=
by,=20
or in any terms we would understand.

> 3. Using phrases that mean other things to people that are in
> authority is not a good way to start any conversation,

I don't know that there's any particular authority in control of this forum=
=2E=20
What authority there is seems to be meritocratic -- that is, I listen to=20
certain people because I know what they've done, and I know they can be=20
respected. When the guy who wrote Merb (and Nanite, and a bunch of other fu=
n=20
things) tells you he doesn't know what you're talking about, I'm inclined t=
o=20
believe it's that you have a problem communicating, and not that we have a=
=20
problem understanding.

> 4.I have NO idea what a "troll" is in your context, you have no idea
> what I'm tryng to say by "black box" in mine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

> 5. Setting up a wiki at GitHub is many times less painless than I
> thought, I really should have done that FIRST - but in my defense I
> had no idea what I was going to learn here.

That doesn't really help. The homepage of your wiki does almost nothing to=
=20
explain what you're talking about. In particular:

"Ru=E2=80=99ids are the =E2=80=9CAtomic Unit=E2=80=9D in this 100% pure Rub=
y based system.
They are not the only part, but they are rather the defining part."

Unit of what, what does that imply, what do they actually do? You don't do =
a=20
very good job of defining them. For that, I have to go to another page:

"They are Minimum Program Units written in a set of
simple Ruby DSLs."

Minimum Program Units -- so, what, methods, modules, objects, files?
Telling us that it's a DSL doesn't help unless you tell us what that DSL is=
=20
describing.

=46or example, Rake has tasks. They are defined in a DSL, sure, but what's=
=20
important is that they're a block of code with a name and a list of other=20
tasks they depend on.

> I bought a
> Book on Symphony that was written by the author that must have been
> 200 pages, I'm not sure that what has to happen to accomplish what I
> know I have accomplished will not require any less....  perhaps
> more....

Definitely less, if you hope for any of us to read it.

It's not just that we have limited time and patience, it's that you are mak=
ing=20
less sense the more you write, and you STILL don't have a proper summary of=
=20
what it is you're talking about.

> 7.  Open source has an attitude of "show me your source" and any
> situation that does not fit this mold can become one of suspicion.

Somewhat, but not necessarily.

=46or example, I've occasionally brought up my somewhat abstract idea of a =
pure-
Ruby actor library in which the messages sent between actors are just metho=
d=20
calls, and actors can be garbage-collected. I sort of have a prototype, but=
=20
I've never shared it here.

Yet people were willing to talk to me about it, because I'm able to explain=
 it=20
in terms they can understand. The only thing missing might be a description=
 of=20
the actor model, and I can just point them here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model

The reason people are insisting that you show us the code is that you seem=
=20
utterly incapable of saying what you mean in plain English, so there's the=
=20
hope that maybe, if there's something to it, we'll be able to understand yo=
ur=20
code. I have my doubts about that -- it might be that people were hoping yo=
u'd=20
shut up and go make it work.

> 8 forum "politics" is not new to me, but the system of "Rank" here
> seems less fragmented than I had expected. Human swarms are always
> interesting.  Mr Davis used exactly the timing, and exactly decisive
> manner that I would use to shut down a "young turk" if I was in a
> position of authority.  (Breaking of rank at this point would take
> some balls.)

I'm fairly sure I've disagreed with Mr. Davis on occasion. I've certainly=20
"broken rank" with anyone here who could be considered a "leader". There ar=
e=20
all sorts of lively debates, and politics generally doesn't get in the way.

The problem here is not politics, it is the fact that no one, even quiet=20
lurkers like me, is able to figure out what you're talking about. If someon=
e=20
could, I'd hope they would speak up and translate for the rest of us.