C Standard Regarding Null Pointer Dereferencing

[Colonel Harlan Sanders]

One searches in vain for evidence of this, Kiki. You, Seebach and
Heathfield say that you admit when you're wrong, but only on narrow
technical points when you agree with the critic. You are deaf to
people who ask you to admit that it's wrong to use "troll" like Hitler
used "Jew".

Being deaf to you is the most sensible reaction, I try to practice it
myself, though occasionally I lapse, as now.

This statement of yours is such a perfect distillation of you being
"fractally wrong", wrong in every detail and at every level, as Seebs
defined some time ago, that I couldn't resist, thus demonstrating your
mastery of the art of trolling.

Okay:
1) "people who ask you .. " People? You, and you alone "ask" this.
Not even the fellow travelers, who sometimes support you on the "enemy
of my enemy" principle" have been nutty enough to buy into this.

2) "Use "troll" like Hitler used "Jew". Hitler didn't say "ignore the
Jew", as far as I know. He was rather more pro-active. So that fails
to make any sense.

"Please don't talk to the Jew"

3) By putting the exhortation "Please don't talk to the Jew" in
quotes you imply that it's a quotation from a very unsavoury source.
That's true: a Google search for this phrase finds one hit: you. As is
your habit, you just made it up.

4) Your oft-repeated statement, that "troll" is a racially charged
term, is bogus, and unsupported by any dictionary. The word comes from
a form of net fishing. You've been told that dozens of times, of
course, you "are deaf to it" as to any inconvenient facts.


And what makes this perfect is that your both incredibly offensive and
incredibly stupid statements are the essence of trolling. You are so
desperate not to be ignored that you are compelled to interject such
loony abuse into any thread you are involved in to turn the subject to
your original and favourite: you.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

You're projecting.

But he's right, nonetheless.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

On Fri, 06 Aug 2010 10:53:24 -0700, Keith Thompson

[snip]

A large part of the reason we participate here is, frankly, to
explain to people why they're wrong.

We!!???  You certainly don't speak for me, and I dare say you
don't speak for many others.

[snip]

Ok, fair enough.

And we probably agree more than is implied by what I wrote above;
I was emphasizing one particular point because of the immediate
context.

(Incidentally, teaching doesn't apply just to newbies.  I've learned
plenty of things here myself, not infrequently as a result of being
told I was wrong about something.)

One searches in vain for evidence of this, Kiki. You, Seebach and
Heathfield say that you admit when you're wrong, but only on narrow
technical points when you agree with the critic. You are deaf to
people who ask you to admit that it's wrong to use "troll" like Hitler
used "Jew".

As you note, it is part of their game to say things like "I've been
wrong myself on occasion", but of course:
1) It's never about anything important (as you say, narrow technical
points at best). They never admit to their real faults.
2) It is only done when the "accuser" is in the buddy circle.

And, yes, these are all the standard attributes of survival in the
modern corporate world. Particularly, the first one - that is,
cultivate a reputation of being willing to admit you're wrong, but never
actually do so (in any way that matters).

--
"The anti-regulation business ethos is based on the charmingly naive notion
that people will not do unspeakable things for money." - Dana Carpender

Quoted by Paul Ciszek (pciszek at panix dot com). But what I want to know
is why is this diet/low-carb food author doing making pithy political/economic
statements?

But the above quote is dead-on, because, the thing is - business in one
breath tells us they don't need to be regulated (that they can morally
self-regulate), then in the next breath tells us that corporations are
amoral entities which have no obligations to anyone except their officers
and shareholders, then in the next breath they tell us they don't need to be
regulated (that they can morally self-regulate) ...

 

[Malcolm McLean]

And, yes, these are all the standard attributes of survival in the
modern corporate world.  Particularly, the first one - that is,
cultivate a reputation of being willing to admit you're wrong, but never
actually do so (in any way that matters).

Most of us have got to earn a living. Admitting to serious mistakes is
usually interpreted as a sign of psychological weakness, and therefore
unsuitability for any role involving responsibility for the work of
others, dealing with clients, or even technically crucial systems.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Most of us have got to earn a living. Admitting to serious mistakes is
usually interpreted as a sign of psychological weakness, and therefore
unsuitability for any role involving responsibility for the work of
others, dealing with clients, or even technically crucial systems.

Well put. The (painfully obvious) question then becomes: But why be
that way here in a Usenet newsgroup? And of course, the equally obvious
answers include:
1) They can't help it. They are what they are.
2) They're actually afraid that employers will read these newsgroups
and see their weakness (as Nilges puts it, "the contour of their
weakness")

The point here is that newsgroups were supposed to be an escape from
corporate reality. God knows we get enough corporate reality in our
lives and newsgroups were supposed to be an alternative reality to that.
Some of us actually remember the good old days - when Usenet was an
idyllic world - inhabited by people who saw corporate reality for what
it is - brutal, unnecessary, and dominated by schoolyard bullies.

Unfortunately, for various reasons, and reinforced by the likes of Kiki
and Dicky, we don't have that anymore.

 

[Malcolm McLean]

Well put.  The (painfully obvious) question then becomes: But why be
that way here in a Usenet newsgroup?  And of course, the equally obvious
answers include:

I think the real answer is that, for some reason, the ng has developed
a culture of pedantry.

Computers are of course very pedantic, always doing what you say and
not what you mean. Because the C standard aims to provide efficient
code for every platform, it too is full of little gotchas. For
instance in the "alphabet" thread, the obvious way to generate the
letters of the alphabet is

for(i=0;i<26;i++)
printf("%c", 'a' + i);

you know that if you say this someone will suggest, impossibly, that
the OP might be running an EBCDIC machine.

Insisting on the correct version is defensible. Sometimes the
correction is made with good humour, but often it is not. I've been
accused occasionally of being "clueless" - I've over twenty years' C
programming experience, most of it in relatively advanced fields, but
I'm not a standards lawyer. I've never found a standards nit to be
actually relevant, with one exception - one compiler I used didn't
support slash slash comments. However many regs (not giving or
implying any names here) see me as a negative example, not someone to
be like.

However the idea that you have to dislike corporate capitalism to be a
clc member in good standing is also ludicrous. You're right, you
should be able to kick off against the petty injustices inflicted upon
you by your employer. That's an ordinary and inevitable part of any
social group for workers. But plenty of people are right wing, not
trades union types at all. Theya re still programmers. Arguably that's
false consciousness, but that really is a subject for a different
newsgroup.

 

[John Kelly]

But he's right, nonetheless.

You're sounding like a spinoza alter ego. It's hard to see how a
rational person could draw that conclusion from so few words.

 

[spinoza1111]

I see the words but their meaning is inscrutable.

Got it, Reading Rainbow. So, take an adult extension class in reading
comprehension.

OK Zorro.

Eat leaden death, reactionary fascistic business administration
majors.

I understand that frightened little dweebs don't understand standing
up like a man for another guy.

 

[spinoza1111]

Being deaf to you is the most sensible reaction, I try to practice it
myself, though occasionally I lapse, as now.

This statement of yours is such a perfect distillation of you being
"fractally wrong", wrong in every detail and at every level, as Seebs
defined some time ago, that I couldn't resist, thus demonstrating your
mastery of the art of trolling.

Okay:
1) "people who ask you .. " People? You, and you alone "ask" this.
Not even the fellow travelers, who sometimes support you on the "enemy
of my enemy" principle" have been nutty enough to buy into this.

I contain multitudes, Bubba. Most decent people are scared of posting
here. I speak for them.

2) "Use "troll" like Hitler used "Jew". Hitler didn't say "ignore the
Jew", as far as I know. He was rather more pro-active. So that fails
to make any sense.

True. But the elegant shits of the 1930s did say "ignore the Jew" at
parties. The graduating class of Princeton University voted Hitler the
most admired man of the year (not, as in the case of Time, the most
significant: the most admired). Hitler, by himself, was a little
shithead. He came to power because of people like you who talk about
"trolls" or "Jews" or "Palestinians" as having no rights you need
recognize, merely because you are one hell of a dumb bastard.

3) By putting the exhortation  "Please don't talk to the Jew" in
quotes you imply that it's a quotation from a very unsavoury source.
That's true: a Google search for this phrase finds one hit: you. As is
your habit, you just made it up.

Yes. I wrote a correct C program to replace "troll" by "Jew" in an
arbitrary rant, and when you do that you get prose that sounds like
it's from Mein Kampf.

4) Your oft-repeated statement, that "troll" is a racially charged
term, is bogus, and unsupported by any dictionary. The word comes from
a form of net fishing. You've been told that dozens of times, of
course, you "are deaf to it" as to any inconvenient facts.

Bullshit. Anyone who's cracked a book, or read fairy stories, knows
that it's a funny little creature. People who've read more know that
the Ayrans manufactured the word to accomplish genocide.

Learn some history, boy.

And what makes this perfect is that your both incredibly offensive and
incredibly stupid statements are the essence of trolling.  You are so
desperate not to be ignored that you are compelled to  interject such
loony abuse into any thread you are involved in to turn the subject to
your original and favourite: you.

**** you, asshole. This ng is about C and you never post about C. You
don't seem to know programming.

So **** the Christ off, you piece of shit.

 

[spinoza1111]

But he's right, nonetheless.

And so is Kenny. I am afraid of turning into my father, a fearsome
retired neurosurgeon, and I miss my Mom, who's dead. So I look at how
this feeling produces pathology in me and see others, less
introspective, doing the same thing.

 

[spinoza1111]

(e-mail address removed) (Richard Harter) writes:
On Fri, 06 Aug 2010 10:53:24 -0700, Keith Thompson
[snip]
A large part of the reason we participate here is, frankly, to
explain to people why they're wrong.
We!!???  You certainly don't speak for me, and I dare say you
don't speak for many others.
[snip]
Ok, fair enough.
And we probably agree more than is implied by what I wrote above;
I was emphasizing one particular point because of the immediate
context.
(Incidentally, teaching doesn't apply just to newbies.  I've learned
plenty of things here myself, not infrequently as a result of being
told I was wrong about something.)

One searches in vain for evidence of this, Kiki. You, Seebach and
Heathfield say that you admit when you're wrong, but only on narrow
technical points when you agree with the critic. You are deaf to
people who ask you to admit that it's wrong to use "troll" like Hitler
used "Jew".

As you note, it is part of their game to say things like "I've been
wrong myself on occasion", but of course:
    1) It's never about anything important (as you say, narrow technical
        points at best).  They never admit to their real faults..
    2) It is only done when the "accuser" is in the buddy circle.

And, yes, these are all the standard attributes of survival in the
modern corporate world.  Particularly, the first one - that is,
cultivate a reputation of being willing to admit you're wrong, but never
actually do so (in any way that matters).

--
"The anti-regulation business ethos is based on the charmingly naive notion
that people will not do unspeakable things for money." - Dana Carpender

Quoted by Paul Ciszek (pciszek at panix dot com).  But what I want to know
is why is this diet/low-carb food author doing making pithy political/economic
statements?

But the above quote is dead-on, because, the thing is - business in one
breath tells us they don't need to be regulated (that they can morally
self-regulate), then in the next breath tells us that corporations are
amoral entities which have no obligations to anyone except their officers
and shareholders, then in the next breath they tell us they don't need to be
regulated (that they can morally self-regulate) ...

Great insights, Kenny. Thanks.

Taste the sweetness of destiny reactionary fascistic business
administration majors.

 

[spinoza1111]

Most of us have got to earn a living. Admitting to serious mistakes is
usually interpreted as a sign of psychological weakness, and therefore
unsuitability for any role involving responsibility for the work of
others, dealing with clients, or even technically crucial systems.

....and so Release 1.0 always sucks, and Blue Screen of Death is
ignored.

 

[spinoza1111]

Well put.  The (painfully obvious) question then becomes: But why be
that way here in a Usenet newsgroup?  And of course, the equally obvious
answers include:
    1) They can't help it.  They are what they are.
    2) They're actually afraid that employers will read these newsgroups
        and see their weakness (as Nilges puts it, "the contour of their
        weakness")

The point here is that newsgroups were supposed to be an escape from
corporate reality.  God knows we get enough corporate reality in our
lives and newsgroups were supposed to be an alternative reality to that.
Some of us actually remember the good old days - when Usenet was an
idyllic world - inhabited by people who saw corporate reality for what
it is - brutal, unnecessary, and dominated by schoolyard bullies.

Unfortunately, for various reasons, and reinforced by the likes of Kiki
and Dicky, we don't have that anymore.

Back in 1986, my supervisor at Princeton was informed at a conference
that I was a psycho. On return she followed up.

I showed her printouts of my postings and supportive comments and she
agreed that I'd done nothing wrong. End of story.

My history of posting since 1986 has never damaged my employability in
the slightest. I was employed as a programmer, consultant and manager
in computing between 1973 and 2005 continuously. At one job in Silicon
Valley, the CEO had read my postings before I was hired and thought
them pretty good.

I left the field in disgust in 2005 since my kids were grown and I
don't like working with people like Seebach who are increasing in
number as more and more companies do less real development, and became
a teacher.

But I agree. It is really strange that people who work in nasty,
Screwtape-like little offices have to set up the same thing here.

 

[John Kelly]

Eat leaden death, reactionary fascistic business administration
majors.

You're out there man. Too far out for me though.

 

[spinoza1111]

You're sounding like a spinoza alter ego.  It's hard to see how a
rational person could draw that conclusion from so few words.

Kenny isn't my alter ego. The regs here, being schoolyard bullies, are
desparately afraid of alliances amongst their targets and will always
say that we are clones of each other or queer. But I don't know what
Kenny looks like. He might not be my type, especially since he's
probably a bloke.

Back at Bell-Northern Research in the early 1980s we all disliked
corporate capitalism and thought it was on its last legs. Nonetheless,
we created technology that made Nortel rich because we knew that a
switch is a computer.

The Thatcherite and Reaganite programmers that were hired in 1985
proceeded to write white papers and always recommended buying or
stealing code since they couldn't code worth dick. This destroyed BNR
and Nortel.

Dickie and Seebie probably agree to do whatever their client or
employer tell them to. They then probably proceed to produce linked
lists with data in the node and scan and replace programs that are
supposed to replace %x but actually replace everything. When called on
their bullshit they look for the office outlier and bully him.

 

[Seebs]

That amounts to much the same thing.

No, it doesn't. I didn't say he had to *agree* with them.

Well said. Do you feel that you could accurately state his
position to his satisfaction?

I don't know. I might be able to.

Does it even occur to you to try?
(It certainly doesn't to me, btw.) You go on at length about
what he has to do to be able to converse meaningfully with you.
The whole business about connotations and usage is about
accepting the conventions of you and others. In other words it
is about you dictating the format of the conversation.

No. If the format of the conversation were up to me, there'd be
a lot less connotation in language.

It is about recognizing the limitations of the medium, and the
reality of readers.

Let us agree that he is tone deaf to connotations and usage.
What to do? He isn't going to change; perhaps he can't.

I did.

Either
you accept him for what he is and work within that framework or
you ignore him. It's that simple.

And thus the plonking.

Piffle. This newsgroup does not have a significant problem with
trolls; some of the regulars do have a noticeable obsession with
"trolls". If there is a problem with the newsgroup, it is that
the community norms include a fair amount of rudeness and
contentiousness, along with a bit of arrogance and condescension.
In other words, just my sort of place.

This, I think I would agree with.

In short it is my opinion (which of course you are free to ignore
and probably will) that your "social benefit" is no such thing.

Groups in which such corrections occur seem to be noticably more
content-heavy than groups in which they don't.

It is likely to perceived as mere officiousness rooted in an
obsession with control. I'm not saying that it is, but I am
saying that that is the reaction that many people have. If that
doesn't bother you, go for it.

As some may have noticed, I don't much care what people imagine I
think. I sort of agree with Shao on that one.

-s

 

[Seebs]

Most of us have got to earn a living. Admitting to serious mistakes is
usually interpreted as a sign of psychological weakness, and therefore
unsuitability for any role involving responsibility for the work of
others, dealing with clients, or even technically crucial systems.

I am not sure which of you strikes me as being crazier here. I have
to earn a living too, and I have never, ever, seen or heard of real
professionals viewing admission of serious mistakes as a psychological
weakness. On the other hand, people who pretend to be willing to admit
that they're wrong, but don't actually do it, rarely fool people for
long -- and once you realize they're liars, you get them out of the
organization as quickly as possible because they're putting active effort
into not getting things done.

Try just being honest and up front about things. I admit to serious
mistakes all the time, and it doesn't seem to be harming my career
any.

-s

 

[spinoza1111]

No, it doesn't.  I didn't say he had to *agree* with them.


I don't know.  I might be able to.


No.  If the format of the conversation were up to me, there'd be
a lot less connotation in language.  

Pretty scary. Peter would like us all to speak Newspeak, a language
drained of poetry and connotations. Then we could snarl at each other
for eternity.

Peter is a creature of the strange American idea that it's all about
"self-interest": about doing and learning as little as possible to get
the maximum reward. Don't bother taking computer science: trash
Schildt instead. Divert school funds to advanced placement for white
people. Instead of learning how to think, to read, to write, say you
have a fashionable disease in order to get a compassion which you
cannot evince.

 

[Shao Miller]

As some may have noticed, I don't much care what people imagine I
think. I sort of agree with Shao on that one.

Which "Shao" is Peter referring to in the quotation above, does anyone
know? He cannot mean me, since I do not share this stance at all, as
expressed in previous posts.

 

[spinoza1111]

I am not sure which of you strikes me as being crazier here.  I have

Right, trash Dr. McLean who's far more educated than you.

to earn a living too, and I have never, ever, seen or heard of real
professionals viewing admission of serious mistakes as a psychological
weakness.  On the other hand, people who pretend to be willing to admit
that they're wrong, but don't actually do it, rarely fool people for
long -- and once you realize they're liars, you get them out of the
organization as quickly as possible because they're putting active effort
into not getting things done.

That's what you say. It's not what happens. You were wrong to start a
flame war with a colleague and fellow Apress author who'd asked you by
email to knock it off, and take it offline to spare the ng, and you
will not admit wrong even if Springer Verlag's management talks to you
or you lose your job.

You knew you were full of shit about Schildt; that's why you changed
the post (and credited me). But it's impossible for you to send me an
apology because you fear that you're a homo.

When you admit wrong, it's always part of a structure in which SOMEONE
ELSE (like me) is safely beyond the Pale. To admit wrong, you need
others to reassure you that you're a real programmer and in the loop
by agreeing with you that so and so is a monster or troll.

Try just being honest and up front about things.  I admit to serious
mistakes all the time, and it doesn't seem to be harming my career
any.

I predict that you'll continue to pull down the big bucks, and the
wool over your employer's eyes, until about the age of fifty. You see,
any given employee can make a net negative contribution and as long as
the absolute value of magnitude of that number is less than the cost
to fire him, he stays employed. Then, you'll go out into the job
market (which will probably suck even more than it does now) to find
that they don't want to talk to someone who hasn't taken any comp sci
classes.

The "real professional" you guys talk about is a false self-image.