Velocity Reviews - Comments on ObjectiveView issue 9 (no, I'm not a spambot)

Hi there,

My name is Mark Collins-Cope, I'm editor of ObjectiveView. I'm writing
this message as I'm concerned at some of the comments I've read in the
"New! ObjectiveView #9" message thread in September. Personal integrity
demands that I respond.

(thread -
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/com...b7993c60022529
)

Summary - (written after I replied below) - see the original message
thread afterwards - which I have commented on the points raised!

* zoat (the original poster) is not connected to ObjectiveView - so
don't slag off the mag because of
him.
* zoat may be a spambot, but seems unlikely given limited posting
history and message contents
(see below)
* I (Mark Collins-Cope) produce ObjectiveView basically on my own. In
spare time. For no money.
* ObjectiveView is meant to be a vehicle for discussing issues relevent
to software development.
* I try to cover all issues from different angles (pro and anti) e.g.
issue 10 of OV contains a anti-ruby opinion piece. Issue 9 contained
two pro-ruby articles.
* In 8 years I have never made a penny from OV directly. It's a
"community venture/collaboration."
* I'm a software engineer, and am personally interested in the topics
covered. Oh, and I sometimes develop in Ruby.
---

All 9 messages in topic are listed below. My comments are bracketed
[*** like this ***]. I'm happy to discuss this further with anyone if
they want to.

From: zoat - view profile
Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 07:57
Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal has
a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and Ruby on
Rails.
http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html
http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf

[*** I don't know who Zoat is, but I'm obviously happy that someone
thought OV9 was worthy of putting on a newsgroup. So thanks Zoat! ***]

From: William Crawford - view profile
Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 12:27
Email: William Crawford <wccrawf...@gmail.com>
Groups: comp.lang.ruby
zoat wrote:
> Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal has

I'm not trying to troll, but calling something 'highly respected' while
advertising it has exactly the opposite effect of what you intend.

[*** I agree this is not a good technique, however I didn't post the
message. Perhaps that's Zoat's opinion - presumably he's allowed to
express that? NOTE: Zoat is not connected to ObjectiveView directly,
and he has nothing to gain by his comments - qed we must consider them
his genuine opinion??? ***]

As for the issue... Yellow and orange? I think my eyes are bleeding.
The orange quotes with small bold type are hard to read (until you get
to 200% magnification), and the yellow borders constantly draw my eyes
away from the text into their staring yellow-ness.

[*** Thanks for that feedback William. I've taken it on board. I won't
be using those colours any more. What I would say, however, is that if
the colours are the only thing you can complain about, we're not doing
too bad.***]

The mass of advertisements taking up most of the cover page also scream
'I'm in it for the money!'

[*** Ha, ha. Okay, let me explain about ObjectiveView. I produce
ObjectiveView on my own basically. It's a big job I do mostly in my
"spare" time. In the 8 years I've been doing it I've never recieved a
penny directly from it. The "advertisments" are for web distribution
partners. The deal there is simple, they distibute the magazine from
their web-site, and we put their logo on front/inner cover. They're not
going to distribute it for nothing, and given the work I put in, I'm
keen to get people reading it. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me -
perhaps you (all) disagree? I'm open to discussion. ***]

It also seems to be heavily biased towards Extreme Programming. While
I
love the idea of XP and some of its techniques are a lifesaver for me,
I
have a hard time believing that 'the one true way' exists and is
'extreme.' As with everything else, moderation is the key to success.

[*** No it's not heavily biased towards extreme. I cover topics that
are part of the software development zeitgeist. I have my own opinions,
but editing a magazine requires I keep those at bay to some degree at
least, and try to cover different angles on the same topic. I have
interviewed various people about XP, and if you read the interviews,
you'll see I give them some degree of a hard time about the claims for
XP (or any other topic). I also have regular contributions from Doug
Rosenberg - perhaps the most vociferous high profile critic of XP. See
issue 7 for an interview with him about his book "XP Refactored - the
case against XP." I gave him something of a hard time too.

ObjectiveView is not about promoting one approach or another, it's
about discussing / raising the pros and cons of different approaches. ]

In short: They're scaring off a lot of people before the magazine even
gets read.

[*** I'm not sure which particular issue you've raised is scaring
people off. Perhaps you could clarify. I'm very interested in honest
feedback. ***]

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

From: Thomas Adam - view profile
Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 12:46
Email: Thomas Adam <thomas.ada...@gmail.com>
Groups: comp.lang.ruby

On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900
"zoat" <enog...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal
> has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and
> Ruby on Rails.
> http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html
> http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf

I won't reiterate the comments posted by William Crawford, but what I
will say is definitely *heed* them. I agree with everything he has
said.

[Thomas - please see my answers to William's points. I believe he is
wrong, and have given reasons why I think so... but please let me know
if you still disagree.]

As for the issue, it was the first time I had read it, and I quite
liked it. I have often been interested in extreme/pair programming, so
it was nice to see some applications of its use.
[*** thanks for that ***]

As for the Ruby side of things, note that the article by Amy Hoy
contains on or two deprecated uses within Ruby that ought not to have
been allowed to propagate through. (c.f. ''foo.type'' should be
''foo.class''). Was she writing that article based on Ruby 1.6.X?
Still, that aside, it ought to give your readership a little bit of an
idea about Ruby.
[*** If you'd like to send me full details (to markcollinscope AT
gmail.com) I will update issue 9 with corrections. It's still getting
about 2k downloads a month. ***]

Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add?
[*** not sure who this comment is aimed at ***]
-- Thomas Adam

From: Jan Svitok - view profile
Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 13:03
Email: "Jan Svitok" <jan.svi...@gmail.com>
Groups: comp.lang.ruby
On 9/25/06, Thomas Adam <thomas.ada...@gmail.com> wrote:

> "zoat" <enog...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal
> > has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and
> > Ruby on Rails.
> > http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html
> > http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf

> I won't reiterate the comments posted by William Crawford, but what I
> will say is definitely *heed* them. I agree with everything he has
> said.

> As for the issue, it was the first time I had read it, and I quite
> liked it. I have often been interested in extreme/pair programming, so
> it was nice to see some applications of its use.

> As for the Ruby side of things, note that the article by Amy Hoy
> contains on or two deprecated uses within Ruby that ought not to have
> been allowed to propagate through. (c.f. ''foo.type'' should be
> ''foo.class''). Was she writing that article based on Ruby 1.6.X?
> Still, that aside, it ought to give your readership a little bit of an
> idea about Ruby.

> Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add?

None. It seems to be a bot.
[*** If Zoat is a Bot, it's nothing to do with me/ObjectiveView. Zoat -
are you there? ***]

From: Paul Lynch - view profile
Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 13:06
Email: Paul Lynch <p...@plsys.co.uk>
Groups: comp.lang.ruby
On 25 Sep 2006, at 13:46, Thomas Adam wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900
> "zoat" <enog...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal
>> has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and
>> Ruby on Rails.

> Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add?

I am wondering - why are people talking to a spambot? (Check the
posting history for zoat for confirmation).
[*** Hmmm.... I'm reading this and answering sequentially, I will check
the posting history now! Okay, it seems that Zoat posts messages about
Ruby/Rails. Note that most of the messages are completely unrelated to
ObjectiveView. I believe that Zoat must be a Ruby/Rails evangelist
type, and he's only posted about ObjectiveView because issue 9
contained two articles on Ruby and Rails. Perhaps he is a spambot -
could be, but seems unlikely as the number of posting is quite small.
***]

Paul

From: James Edward Gray II - view profile
Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 13:30
Email: James Edward Gray II <j...@grayproductions.net>
Groups: comp.lang.ruby
On Sep 25, 2006, at 7:46 AM, Thomas Adam wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900
> "zoat" <enog...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal
>> has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and
>> Ruby on Rails.
>> http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html
>> http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf

This is very old news. I'm not sure when the issue was released but
the "Welcome to Issue 9" page has a February 2006 date at the bottom.

[*** James is factually correct. However OV is currently produced about
twice a year (if I had more time I would do it more often, maybe I
will...) so issue 9 was still the latest issue at time of posting.
The implication of saying something is very 'old news' is that it is no
longer relevent, as elapsed time has made it redundant. All I can say
is even now (December) it would seem to me that topics such as Ruby,
Rails, Aspect/J and Ajax are as relevent as ever - so I don't think the
'old news' label is appropriate. But hey, I'm not that bothered about
this :-)! ***]

> As for the Ruby side of things, note that the article by Amy Hoy
> contains on or two deprecated uses within Ruby that ought not to have
> been allowed to propagate through. (c.f. ''foo.type'' should be
> ''foo.class''). Was she writing that article based on Ruby 1.6.X?
> Still, that aside, it ought to give your readership a little bit of an
> idea about Ruby.
Yes, I sent Amy a list of suggested improvements when the article was
originally published. I'm pretty sure she intended to post
corrections on her blog, but I don't believe she ever got around to it:
http://www.slash7.com/articles/2006/...e-view-of-ruby
[*** Thanks for helping Amy! ***]

James Edward Gray II

On Sep 25, 2006, at 8:06 AM, Paul Lynch wrote:
> On 25 Sep 2006, at 13:46, Thomas Adam wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900
>> "zoat" <enog...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>>> Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal
>>> has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and
>>> Ruby on Rails.

>> Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add?

> I am wondering - why are people talking to a spambot? (Check the
> posting history for zoat for confirmation).

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....a068913ce02cef
[*** For the record, here's the content of that URL:

"I starting a Knowlege Manament project and would like to have as
reference the best "Wiki" system implemented using Ruby.

This project is intended to use a non linear Wiki system like
TiddlyWiki (see http://www.tiddlywiki.com) and also a full cosmology
implementation of the Personal Brain functionality (see
http://www.thebrain.com).

I have looked around about some, but it semeed to me not be able to
know its current status e.g. instiki. So can anybody help me on that?

Roberto Nogueira
http://holoflux.wordpress.com"

I think the implication here is that zoat is a real person! :-)! ***]

James Edward Gray II

From: M. Edward (Ed) Borasky - view profile
Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 13:34
Email: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <z...@cesmail.net>
Groups: comp.lang.ruby

Paul Lynch wrote:

> On 25 Sep 2006, at 13:46, Thomas Adam wrote:

>> On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900
>> "zoat" <enog...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>>> Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal
>>> has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and
>>> Ruby on Rails.

>> Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add?

> I am wondering - why are people talking to a spambot? (Check the
> posting history for zoat for confirmation).

> Paul

And *I* am wondering how a spambot got to be a "member" of our "club".
[*** Well, about that I no idea. I don't think it's a spambot actually
- see above, but I could be wrong... ***]

From: William Crawford - view profile
Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 14:08
Email: William Crawford <wccrawf...@gmail.com>
Groups: comp.lang.ruby
Paul Lynch wrote:
> I am wondering - why are people talking to a spambot? (Check the
> posting history for zoat for confirmation).

> Paul

Because... I... Um...

Okay, it fooled me. -sigh-

100.times { puts "I will not talk to spambots." }

[***

100.times { puts "I will not talk to spambots." } if
haveVerifiedThatItReallyIsASpamBot

***]

-------------
A few final comments that I hope you'll be interested in discussing
with me.

1. What is Spam?

I hate bloody spam. I get a ton in my email box every day, and it
****es me off. However, I have also been using internet news groups for
20-odd years, and in that time I have read literally hundreds of
announcements that are directly relevent to the newsgroup topic -
*without* everyone on the group having a hernia about the message ;-)

If someone sent "buy your viagra here" to this newsgroup, I'd be with
you 100% in banning the person who posted it. But an OnTopic message
about a Free Magazine that is of value (in this instance) to the Ruby
community - come on - chill out a bit! :-)!

I *do* - personally - sometimes post message to relevent newsgroups
about OV - usually without any negative feedback - and checking with
moderators first (but I didn't post anything connected to the thread
above).

2. Commercial Gain (put your sense of humour hat on please ... switch
to non hernia chill out mode... :-)

There seems to be a theme in the above thread that implies "commercial
gain" is bad. (Note here, as I said above, OV is not for direct
commercial gain).

Well, some people on this group are definately interacting to help them
do their job. For which they are paid. Of course, the content is
on-topic, so that's okay. But aren't they getting commercial gain from
their postings - well I'd say they are ;-)! And say someone wrote a
really cool (but paid for) product that really helped Ruby developers.
Wouldn't it be of benefit to the Ruby community to know about it?

And if it turned out the product was really a pile of shite, well that
would become apparent from the messages - and the Ruby community would
still benefit (by not buying the crap product)... So to me it would
seem okay to have on-topic announcements even if they are for
commercial gain....

Call me a sophist :)!

3. Assuming the worst...
A general life point, that applies to this message thread as well. When
dealing with a situation with many unknowns (like not actually what the
deal was for the logos on the front page) you have two choices: assume
the best, or assume the worst. By assuming the best - you may be wrong
- but until you actually know that, it is the best option - because
assuming the worst will often lead to dissing people who don't deserve
to be dissed. This will seriously **** of the people being dissed, and
in turn will create conflict - and we don't need that unnecessarily...
???

btw: I'm not a saint, I've made that mistake many times... but have
eventually learned a lesson from it... :-)!

Ciao and thanks.
Mark.