Re: type based aliasing again

[craig AT jcb-sc.com]

>	I still believe that you are writing long-winded responses to your
>own strawman proposals instead of responding to the actual proposals on
>the table.  If your entire earlier message was intended to point out that
>my comment was an oversimplification, then why not just say that and make
>a stronger point in a shorter message?

Because it wasn't clear to me your comment was an over-simplification,
as it might well have been something the FSF said lately.

I was responding to the comment.  I even explained why in my most
recent message.  If my messages are too long for you to read -- to
the PS of the earlier message, or to the explanation for why
I felt the wording you used, *as such* (regardless of whether it
was your oversimplification, or a reasonable approximation of
the FSF's stance), needed to be discredited, then please add me
to your killfile.  I've been told I'm overly verbose for about
three decades.  Clearly that hasn't fixed much of anything, so
don't hold your breath.

In my own defense, I'll point out that my verbosity is frequently
the result of sincere attempts on my part to *not* over-simplify
an argument or point, especially not in an attempt to *add* force
to my argument.  In short, I try *very* hard to *not* use demagoguery
*or* set up straw-men.  I believe I usually do a good job of
writing clearly, but, in discussions where others write sloppily,
as you did, I do tend to challenge the *breadth* of possible meanings
of their writings, which includes having to more precisely define
each meaning or alternative, rather than pick just one.  Because,
in practice, if I pick just one, the author inevitably says something
like "well, then, that's not what I meant, and you knew that" -- and
in a sense, he's right, I'd know that wasn't *necessarily* the one
thing he meant.

So I guess you're saying I should have just said "are you over-
simplifying, do you have a pointer to the statement so we can
judge for ourselves what the FSF said".  But, I figure, you must
have had a reason to put it in your own words, so I assumed
there was some honor and integrity as well as practicality in doing
so, and went from there.  It was therefore natural for me to
reason through the issue on the assumption you were fairly
representing the FSF's position to the rest of us, since that's
what you attempted to undertake, and I assumed you were being
honest and fair.

Further, there was no need to over-simplify in that case vis-a-vis
what the FSF probably *did* say (e.g. "programs that invoke undefined
behavior that is universally recognized as being definable to mean
one thing should not be broken by GCC"), so it didn't exactly
make sense that you would over-simplify just to save a few words,
since that's the most it would have saved.

        tq vm, (burley)