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

[Benjamin Lang]

Hi Roy,

Thank you, I’m sorry — I couldn’t resist fitting in a little dig there because that’s one of my main frustrations with actually using R, and to me it seemed to make some sort of sense because I was complaining about backwardness in a way (so a steep learning curve seemed to fit in). The error messages are so cryptic that I wonder how anyone ever used R before Google (e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27350636/r-argument-is-of-length-zero-in-if-statement).

I’m a bit appalled 50% of the responses think correctness and not being a jerk to some fraction of people is a bad thing and trigger warnings have been brought up (in a funny way). I should have done my research and noticed —quiet is indeed an existing option, though.

If I had an R-related wish, it would be that “—slave” becomes “-Q” in the documentation and is silently maintained for compatibility.

My original post came out of watching “12 Years A Slave” and if you haven’t, I recommend it. The powerlessness and ultra-grating injustice and the irony of slavery being easily justified by the Bible while abolition is not is an experience.

Thanks,
Ben

P.S. Do any R developers actually read this?

> On 19 Sep 2019, at 22:12, Roy Mendelssohn - NOAA Federal <roy.mendelssohn using noaa.gov> wrote:
> 
> 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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>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>> 
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>> 
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
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> **********************
> Roy Mendelssohn
> Supervisory Operations Research Analyst
> NOAA/NMFS
> Environmental Research Division
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> "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" -MLK Jr.
> 

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