[R] [SPAM] Re: The "--slave" option

[Roy Mendelssohn - NOAA Federal]

Hi Ben:

Without commenting one way or another on your point,  your initial post seemed a lot like trolling because of:

> Let me reiterate that it is 2019, i.e. "The Future", rather than 1970 when
> R was presumably developed, based on its atrocious syntax, documentation
> and usability (I think I only need to say "NaN", "NULL", and "NA").
> 

You are certainly welcome to your opinions about R,  but these comments are totally aside from what I assume is your main point,  and because of this my first reaction was don't feed the trolls.

My $0.02.

-Roy

> On Sep 19, 2019, at 2:51 AM, Benjamin Lang <langbnj using gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Richard,
> 
> Thank you, that’s interesting. There is also something called an “etymological fallacy”. I think current usage is more useful here than the “science of truth”, i.e. the Ancient Greek idea that the (sometimes inferred) derivation of a word allows us to grasp “the truth of it”. 
> 
> In current usage, a “server” is someone who brings you dishes in a restaurant. A “client” is a customer. A “slave” is a human being forced to perform work under duress and considered nothing more than a machine, say a dishwasher or a tractor. And in some regions, this echoes on and is offensive and hurtful to some.
> 
> A new user, wanting to reduce output from R, would probably reach for “-q” or “—quiet”. This makes sense in the same way that “—stentorian” is not a good alternative to “—verbose”. 
> 
> Best,
> Ben
> 
>> On 19 Sep 2019, at 10:55, Richard O'Keefe <raoknz using gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> One of my grandfathers was from Croatia.  Guess what the word "slave" is derived
>> from?  That's right, Slavs.  This goes back to the 9th century.  And then of course
>> my grandfather's people were enslaved by the Ottoman empire, which was only defeated
>> a little over a hundred years ago.  My other grandfather was from the British isles,
>> where to this day followers of the same prophet are enslaving people like me
>> (except for being female).  So I'm sorry, but I'm not impressed.
>> 
>> How many computers are "servers"?  There's that whole client-server thing.
>> Guess what "server" comes from?  That's right, the Latin word "servus", which
>> means guess what?  You got it again: "slave".  Are we to abolish the word
>> "server"?  What about the word "client"?  Ah, that's part of the client-patron
>> system from Rome, so what about the patriarchy, eh?
>> 
>> We are dealing with something called "the genetic fallacy".
>> "The genetic fallacy (also known as the fallacy of origins ...)
>> is a fallacy of irrelevance that is based solely on someone's
>> or something's history, origin, or source rather than its
>> current meaning or context."  (Wikipedia.)
>> 
>> Context matters.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 17:10, Abby Spurdle <spurdle.a using gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Personally I much prefer backwards compatibility to political correctness.
>>> 
>>> I agree with Rolf, here.
>>> And as someone that's planning to write a Linux Terminal Emulator, in
>>> the medium-term future, I *strongly* defend this approach.
>>> 
>>> And to the original poster.
>>> Haven't you seen The Matrix?
>>> (Second best movie ever, after the Shawshank Redemption).
>>> 
>>> I would prefer the technology to be my slave, than I be a
>>> prisoner/slave to the technology.
>>> 
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> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
> ______________________________________________
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**********************
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**********************
Roy Mendelssohn
Supervisory Operations Research Analyst
NOAA/NMFS
Environmental Research Division
Southwest Fisheries Science Center
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