FAQtual midemeanors

["Mulcyber" <cyberdiction at hotmail dot com>]

*From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please at cygwin dot com>
*To: cygwin-xfree at cygwin dot com
*Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:29:25 -0400
*Subject: Re: compiling flpsed under Cygwin

> SH: I assume then that the FAQ does not need to be amended and
> that Chris Faylor can contradict the FAQ whenever he chooses.

CGF:
"Wow, yeah, if the Cygwin FAQ actually said anything like that it would
be the cause of some confusion."

That is the information you get if you send a command to ezmlm asking
for the FAQ for the cygwin-at-cygwin mailing list.

The real Cygwin FAQ at http://cygwin.com/faq.html doesn't mention
XFree86.

http://cygwin.com/lists.html gets it right.  The FAQ at x.cygwin.com
only mentions XFree86 appropriately.

Nevertheless, I have now eliminated the source of your confusion.  As
embarrassing as it is to admit, I had to ask Igor where in the world
this text came from.  It is particularly embarrassing because I wrote
the words years ago when we were still using XFree86."

SH: I had unsubscribed from this mailing list before I read this
which annoyed me enough to resubscribe. I remembered reading
this in the FAQ, and I thought I was losing my marbles so I took
the time to reread the FAQ. Sure enough I found:

http://www.cygwin.com/faq/faq_3.html#SEC28
"What Cygwin mailing lists can I join?
Comprehensive information about the Cygwin mailing
lists can be found at

http://cygwin.com/lists.html.

"There are a few exceptions to the "all things cygwin"
nature of this list:
Questions about the Cygwin/X project (or any X-related questions
for cygwin) should go to the cygwin-xfree mailing list (see below).

cygwin-xfree: a list for discussion of all things related to X
on Cygwin (Cygwin/X). If you have questions about how to use,
configure, install, build, or develop with Cygwin/X, this is the
list for you. If you have general questions about using Cygwin/X,
please see the Cygwin/X User's Guide or the Cygwin/X FAQ."

SH: I suppose you could make a technical argument that although
the FAQ is located at different pages at the same website and
the lists.html is located at the same website, perhaps they are not
stored in the same directory so therefore not part of the FAQ.

But the FAQ uses the word "comprehensive" to describe what you
might want to term supplemental documentation, not part of the FAQ.
But you mistakenly describe this condition with dismal sarcasm again.

CGF writes:
"Wow, yeah, if the Cygwin FAQ actually said anything like that it would
be the cause of some confusion."

SH: I think the FAQ giving providing a "comprehensive" reference and a
link to the information falls under the umbrella of "saying anything like 
that".

CGF: Nevertheless, I have now eliminated the source of your confusion.

SH: Do you mean by claiming that the source of my confusion was due
to my reading ezmlm rather than the same information linked to in the FAQ?

The link to lists.html is still in the FAQ. So I imagine you mean that you
changed the information in lists.html so that it is indeed "comprehensive"
and no longer in need of updating. I read this edited information again:

"cygwin-xfree: a list for discussion of all things related to X on Cygwin
(Cygwin/X). If you have questions about how to use, configure, install,
build, or develop with Cygwin/X, this is the list for you."

SH: I think it would suprise most people to know that by "all things"
you mean only, the Xorg X server, and that XFree86 was off-topic.

I can't imagine how this is hard to foresee as a source of confusion
which you did not eliminate. My problem with flpsed was totally an
X problem, how to write the ./configure syntax to enable -lX11 and
so falls under having questions about how to use, configure, install
build or develop with Cygwin/X. It was solved without any .so files.
It was solved without changing my X server, or downloading any
additional libraries, all it needed was the already acquired gcc* and
Xorg libraries etc. I told you I had all of them installed which you
question out of sheer perveristy later in this post which I will snip.
Unlike you, I don't use the word "all" to mean one or some and
I suppose that is the source of your confusion since you continue
to practice it while you 'eliminate the source of my confusion' which
was the misinformation in the contradictory documentation which
you as project leader are responsible for. While I was writing I thought
about how old you are. I don't think you deliberately and deceitfully
presented a less than half-truth. Your sarcasm needs a lot of work.

This wasn't the first package I worked on that had an involved
command line. I installed the preview-latex package for Xemacs.
When I said I "desperately" extracted an .so from a Debian package
the word desperately was intended to convey I realized this had a
very remote chance of success. But my strategy is to leave no stone
unturned and the decision could hardly make the compile fail more.
You know something about Cygwin, but it is a good thing you are
not in charge of documentation since you are linguistically challenged.
Let me put that another way: you don't know what words implicate
and you have a hard time writing an honest descriptive sentence.

Apparently you don't think a supplementary document recommended
as "comprehensive" within the FAQ with a link, inherits the FAQ's
authoritative permissions as a source of reliable information.

CGF wrote:
"Wow, yeah, if the Cygwin FAQ actually said anything like that it
would be the cause of some confusion."

If you don't think the FAQ actually says "anything like that" and
no longer serves as a possible cause of some confusion, then
you with you budyy, Igor, have the same fine grasp upon reality.

Comprehensively, the end of an era is coming,
Stephen

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