Re: Constructive criticism

[Dave Korn <dave.korn.cygwin@gmail.com>]

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".

    cheers,
      DaveK