From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id PAA17527; Thu, 8 Nov 2001 15:59:21 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id PAA17737 for caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr; Thu, 8 Nov 2001 15:59:20 +0100 (MET) Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA04917 for ; Thu, 8 Nov 2001 02:59:42 +0100 (MET) Received: from ritchie.loop.com (ritchie.loop.com [207.211.60.70]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id fA81xaf29186 for ; Thu, 8 Nov 2001 02:59:36 +0100 (MET) Received: from techscribe.com (IDENT:elan@p41.hwts22.loop.net [207.211.65.104]) by ritchie.loop.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA69315; Wed, 7 Nov 2001 17:59:31 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <3BE9F75E.FF977720@techscribe.com> Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 19:09:18 -0800 From: Elan X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.14-5.0 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Caml Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Jihad References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk Mark Wotton wrote: > > On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Eric Newhuis wrote: > > > A quick note on my potentially offensive style... > > > > I am sincere. The term fits my personal experience with > > ObjectiveCaml. It is jihad, i.e. "struggle". I am sorry if others > > may take issue with my use of metephor. > > > > My intentions were never to offend. And I will not retract. > > On a purely practical level, you may be well advised not to use religious > terms. The perception of functional programmers is already that we're all > crazed zealots: using religious terminology doesn't help that at all. > I disagree that Jihad should not be used because it is a religous term. I believe that adopting metaphors from all over the cultural scene (including religion) is perfectly legitimate. Jihad is a bloodthirsty warcry for the indiscriminant murder of innocent victims. This definition of Jihad is not theologically derived from the Quran, it is politically defined by those terrorist groups who are responsible for the assassination of former Egyption president Anwar Sadat, for the murder of moderate Muslims in Algeria, whose throats are routinely slit in attacks on their villages (must be quite a struggle), of Christian worshippers in a church in Pakistan, of Sikhs and Hindu in India, and let's not forget the most recent victims in the World Trade Center. Bin Laden's version of Jihad includes the kidnapping of Ugandian children, who are forced to serve as slaves on his farms in the Sudan. If these acts of Jihad happen to coincide with your experience of programming in OCAML, Eric, then I recommend you rapidly switch to binary. To use "Jihad" as a metaphor for something that has nothing to do with mass murder is not offensive. It is ignorant. Elan ------------------- Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr