Re: Constructive criticism

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-use-the-mailinglist-please@cygwin.com>]

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 04:05:10PM +0100, Dave Korn wrote:
>On 29/07/2010 06:55, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 03:35:09AM +0100, Dave Korn wrote:
>>> On 28/07/2010 01:14, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 07:55:14PM +0100, Andy Koppe wrote:
>>>>> Darn, dropped the punchline:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Your code is 100% bogus and should be taken out the back,
>>>>>>> lined up against a wall, and machine-gunned.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Then the bleeding corpse should be hung, drawn and quartered.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Then burnt.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Then the smouldering rubble should be jumped up and down on.
>>>>>> By a hippo
>>>> Oh boy.  That brought back memories.  I guess I'm glad I'm not the
>>>> object of the discussion though.
>>>  Clearly, I was too subtle in that reply.  It doesn't seem that anyone in
>>> that thread was distinguishing between criticising someone's code and
>>> criticising the person themselves.  Oh well, never mind.
>> 
>> I'm certainly well aware of the distinction but it's not one that I've
>> had much luck with myself.
>> 
>>>  Well, I'm too busy to care right now anyway, I've got a whole bunch of
>>> parents that I have to go and tell that their babies are ugly!
>> 
>> Wait!  Dave!  Stop!
>> 
>> Oh boy.  I'll bet it's too late.
>> 
>> cgf
>
>  Actually, it all went rather well, considering.  There was an awkward
>silence for a moment, but then someone else spoke up and said that he'd
>thought so too, but hadn't wanted to say anything for fear of hurting their
>feelings.
>
>  Then the guy from the QA dept. said that actually that might explain why the
>baby had failed in some of their tests, and then the Marketing guy said that
>they had had some negative consumer reaction to the baby in their polling, but
>they hadn't highlighted it in their report because ... well, everyone already
>hates Marketing anyway, and before you know it it turned out that pretty much
>everyone had been thinking the same thing but nobody was saying it.  Even the
>parents were agreeing that they'd kind-of known it really, but didn't want to
>admit it to themselves...
>
>  ... It was all going fine until I told them to "Plan to throw one away, you
>will anyhow".

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