Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!decwrl!pyramid!prls!philabs!micomvax!ray
From: ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Modern languages (Slight return)
Message-ID: <1129@micomvax.UUCP>
Date: 20 Jun 88 18:09:20 GMT
References: <3292@enea.se> <2414@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <11671@ut-sally.UUCP> <12753@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <1090@micomvax.UUCP> <352@piring.cwi.nl>
Reply-To: ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn)
Organization: Philips Electronics Ltd. (TDS - Montreal) St. Laurent QC, Canada
Lines: 52

In article <12753@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> gast@lanai.UUCP (David Gast) writes:
 [In response to Ed Nather's reference to Tony Hoare]
>
> You might also want to remember that his reviews of Algol 68 were
> notorious for misreprenting the truth...

In article <1090@micomvax.UUCP> ray@micomvax.UUCP I replied:
> Foul Play!
> 
> Does "he would give an example" actually mean "he gave (one) example" or, as
> it implies, that he *habitually* did this...

In article <352@piring.cwi.nl> steven@cwi.nl (or try mcvax!steven.uucp) writes:
>No indeed, David Gast is right. Hoare's criticisms of Algol 68 were
>extremely misinformed and weren't confined to a single occurrence.
>
>As an example.....

Steven's response partially provides the sort of examples that were missing
from David Gast's diatribe and caused me to cry "Foul Play".

I received private e-mail from Gast, which, to avoid accusations of lack of
netiquette, I will not quote directly unless he cares to give his
permission.  However it did make passing references to certain orifices of
my anatomy and suggested it was up to *me* to do the research to verify
*his* unsubstantiated insults, thus showing a certain lack of understanding
of due intellectual process.  He did get his anatomy correct however, I do
have such an orifice, though whether I use it for the same functions as he
does, of course, I have no idea.

Hoare, with whom I worked briefly in 1965-6 on an implementation of an Algol
60 compiler, was not, if *anything*, uninformed - biased perhaps, endowed
with enthusiastic tunnel vision certainly, but definitely not uninformed.
These "qualities" are reasonably common in major figures of academia and are
often the very factors required to get new ideas through to the skeptical
traditionalists.  Although not not necessarily always correct, nor always to
be condoned, these traits can be understood, and are often balanced by other
redeeming factors.

Unsubstantiated insults without quotations and verifiability are extremely
easy to make, are *never* acceptable, and even if correct, still warrant the
cry of "Foul Play"!  It would be foolhardy to write off Tony Hoare's
opinions and achievements out of hand, merely on the basis of a few flames
in USENET.

* Disclaimer: To hopefully avoid further pointless gutter-mail, I reserve the
              right to publish any e-mail received on this subject.
-- 
Ray Dunn.                      |   UUCP: ..!{philabs, mnetor}!micomvax!ray
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