A message to Dex

[Solar]

This is a last offer of truce. You say "sorry" for your insults, among others towards Candy and myself, and promise to behave a bit more civilized. Then I'll say "sorry" for my flames, and promise to give you the same leeway again that I give everybody else.

Do we have a deal?

[Ryu]

I can't see how you can tolerate him.

[Dex4u]

You want me, to say sorry, for trying to answer peoples ?, then the answer is NO!.
There are people on this forum who want to learn and will get far, and are good people.
But theres also lots of sheep blindly following clueless people, who have read one or two books and think they know it all.
If people do not want my help, its there loss.

So firer your insults, as much as you want, they mean nothing to me.

[Candy]

You want me, to say sorry, for trying to answer peoples ?

No. We want you to say sorry for acting like a child, pretending to know it all because you're so great whereas other people that don't follow your development style or in some cases lifestyle couldn't know it all since they're not like you. That's pretty narrow-minded and childish if you ask me.

Personally, I'm offended when you dump a block of bytes that an assembler understands to help a human. Humans have languages of their own, they use them to communicate things that can't properly be captured in code. Since code doesn't encapsulate it all, just about every language I know (exceptions of brainfuck and machine language, both for pretty obvious reasons) has comments in varying forms. You barely comment (properly - I can see what mov eax, 12 does, but I can't figure out what the 12 should represent), you barely document and you claim to do so better than people that mainly document. You also claim to code and design more, which is true from your point of view - other people tend to use things as prototypes, examples and attempts whereas I tend to see you just code it once, hack it until it works and put it somewhere.

There are people on this forum who want to learn and will get far, and are good people.
But theres also lots of sheep blindly following clueless people, who have read one or two books and think they know it all.

As said before, the world isn't as black&white as "people like you" vs "people not like you". Especially on a wide international forum where all continents (probably except antarctica) are properly represented and where people tend to learn from eachother, not ignore what others say. As much as we could and are learning from you, you yourself are not perfect. You need to learn to learn as much as we have had to (and still do).

If people do not want my help, its there loss.

That should be "their loss" and I disagree. Helping people understand something is insofar complex that people have studied the concept of learning for millennia by now, and they still don't entirely completely understand it. People are educated for years to be a teacher. Can you say that all teachers you had could explain you stuff properly?

So firer your insults, as much as you want, they mean nothing to me.

If you consider what we are telling you to be insults then we might as well not tell them. We're not insulting you, we're trying to explain you something you don't want to understand or acknowledge.

[Solar]

Anyone speaking in defense of Dex?

[bluecode]

May I ask what the hell is going on on that forum? I'm a little bit confused. Why should Dex be banned?

[Solar]

May I ask what the hell is going on on that forum? I'm a little bit confused. Why should Dex be banned?

I don't really remember when I started taking offense by his posts, as each post in itself wasn't really that bad and could be written off as "weird but OK" or "strange taste of humor". But it became a pattern: He's the greatest ASM coder out there, everyone using C must be somewhat pathological for using such an inferor language, ASM code is the one and only way to explain something (the less comments the better), everyone writing a documentation or having some skill at orthography cannot be a good programmer, etc. etc. - I'm not making this up, I could link the respective threads, and could find dozens of other things but am reluctant to waste yet more time on him.

Essentially, he's a god of code, everyone else should listen only to him, and some of the deepest truths of software engineering don't apply to him because he codes in ASM.

After some of this, several people started to give him criticism for it and / or calling him to order. Candy, Pype and myself somewhat more frequently than the rest. The result was that he became insulting, personally. (E.g., changing his public name to "CandyIsGay" after a disagreement with Candy.)
There were several postings of the "stop this immediately" kind by the moderators, which he laughed off. I admit he got me enraged at several points, provoking reactions where I should've kept my calm instead, but I'm only human. This all eventually culminated - for me, at least - in the thread Device Driver Compatibility in new OS.

I strongly feel that someone so completely missing basic courtesy, modesty, and respect for fellow developers (or forum moderators) does hurt a community, no matter what his coding skills may be.

This thread was my last offer of truce, which he slapped down in his usual way.

I won't let a twerp like that insult myself, or challenge me to pissing contests in every other thread because of some vendetta of his against everybody who's doing software engineering instead of 1337 c0de h4x0r1ng. Either he stops it voluntarily (which he made clear he won't), or he's forced to, or I step down as moderator of this board. I've wasted enough time on silly flamewars, some of them even predating the WWW, to waste time or nerves on a kid like him.

[mystran]

Solar and Candy have a point, and while I'd personally dislike the idea of banning anyone, in this case I can't reasonably object either, because I'd like to see this forum keep a decent signal to (thermal) noise, and lately it's been getting a bit too warm (and too personal, as best illustrated by the 'CandyIsGay' incident).

Just don't make it a permanent ban (6 to 12 months should be enough, extend later if necessary); time has a habbit of being a decent teacher, after all.

[Pype.Clicker]

I guess it's my turn now ...

First of all, i'd like to say i do not want Dex to be out. Man, i want none of you to be out: those of you who have seen the first posts of nuno_silva_pt and a few others know i'm very concerned by keeping this board a friendly place for everyone.

Dex find himself helpful by showing his ASM code. The fact that most of us here think that people should be given hints to find their own answers rather than be given code on a plate does not necessarily mean doing one or the other is bad. That's the power of a board such as this one that one coming with "how do i write a floppy driver ? " will get all sort of answers and be able to pick the one he prefers.

Pick after pick, disagree after disagree, i've seen both of you, Solar and Dex, getting more and more quick to react against wording of the other. I tried to moderate the fight as much as i could ... I'm a bit sad i still haven't completely understood what is getting wrong in Dex's experience to make him send quotes like "i see you are a good speller".

I imagine the fact Solar has the moderator rank is not to help here ... I can fairly well imagine that Dex has a sort of generic disagree against authority. I need to remind everyone here that Solar has never asked for being a moderator. I did, because when Tim Robinson went away, i felt the urge to have friends beside me to do the moderation of the board (and still do my paid job). I knew my friends Candy and Solar could be of valuable help so i suggested DF to promote them.

And if some of you wonder why PypeClicker has no longer green stars, just keep in mind the board movement and wikispam mess we had a few days ago. I'm too busy these weeks to ask DF to be reintegrated ... i'm too busy to moderate right atm. Man, i'm even too busy to afford writing this post !

This vendetta between you, Dex, and Solar (and occasionnaly Candy) must come to an end. I think Solar have offered you a hand of peace here at the start of the thread. Not necessarily in the wordings you would have liked to hear it, but it was a step towards you.
I would like you to take the time to consider his offer and i have no doubt you can try to behave a bit more self-moderated.

I fully understand Solar when he say "i'll quit moderating here", and i won't try to make him stay, but it will be a victory for noone here. And it will be a deception for me, because it'd mean my decision to ask him to be moderator lead to an unenviable position for him.

So, i'd really love we can come to a more peaceful time and yes, Dex, i think that mean you should present excuse to the ones you've offended, because that's how peace can be started.
I'm open to an online discussion with you (ICQ #98176626) if there are things you want to chat about.

[JoeKayzA]

Don't know if someone cares, but here's my opinion:

I think Solar is one of the best mods on this board, and it would be a _very_ big loss if he laid down this job here. The issues with Dex have gone too far, and something has to happen now. I think it's a sign of maturity already that Solar still gives Dex a chance, other mods would probably have acted instantly and silently.

I don't want to argue about ASM vs c++ code and stuff (how the issues began), but childish insults have nothing to do with this board.

cheers Joe

[octavio]

with the exception of 'candisgay' i haven?t found anything else that can be considered a inportant offense ,wrong or right ,Dex posts are just opinions like all others,some people here is too much susceptible ,and on a forum like this a bit more of tolerance is required.
Well that was my opinion. And please,don?t flame assembly language

[bluecode]

with the exception of 'candisgay' i haven?t found anything else that can be considered a inportant offense

Yes, that's why I asked. We all know that Dex sometimes is not the "nicest" person, but imho that's no reason to ban him. But my view is very limited due to the fact that I wasn't reading on that forum for two weeks (holiday )

[Solar]

And please,don?t flame assembly language

I don't. Neither do I flame someone for coding in assembler. To the contrary, I wish my assembler skills were more up-to-date than they are, because it is a good skill to have when doing punctual optimizations or low-level debugging of higher language's code.

But I think I may claim that that modern compiler backends usually generate better optimized code than 95% of assembler coders because of the complexity of modern CPU architectures, or that doing something in all assembler does not guarantee superior performance per se, without getting flamed or called "clueless" or being considered a second-class programmer because I lack 1337 5k1llz. Right?

Perhaps Dex is one of the remaining 5%. But it's not as if my statement above is some hazarding, revolutionary point of view, it is accepted knowledge. We may discuss the topic, but in civilized tones.

with the exception of 'candisgay' i haven?t found anything else that can be considered a inportant offense...

As I said, each posting in itself might not be "too much", but he racked up quite a score in rather short time. Some examples:

"Doc like this, come about from people, who do not like coding, but love to type." (On Project UDI. I pointed out the readily available reference implementation, which he didn't take as an opportunity to relativize his statement.)

"I do not think much of you red message, it looks bit script kiddy to me ::)"

"All good coders are bad spellers, i noticed your a good speller."

After Candy pointed out that a floppy driver can benefit from smart readahead / caching policies, not so much from hand-crafted assembler: "@ Candy,There are also people who talk about making things and people who make things, please can you post a link to you floppy driver, so i can test it against mine for speed."

After Candy called him to order and refused to get into a pissing contest: "All i am trying to do is help some people with there OS coding, i do not need addvice from heavy hand modders, who have not even code a floppy driver."

"These comments in my link page about this forum, were made over a year ago http://www.dex4u.com/links.htm Not much as changed ." (I.e., he's been moderated a year ago already, but still doesn't respect the moderators here.)

From this thread: JAAman: "did you forget to look at the title of the thread? he specifically mentioned mode 0x12 and his question is about bit planes not banking!" Dex: "Yes i read the title, but some time people think that it is, much easier to use mode 12h, than vesa, by pointing them to some easy code, it may help them with there problems. If not, it gives board people like you, something to moan about."

"Thanks candy, once again you have proved my theory that all you mods on this forum, other than Pype.Clicker, are full of your own self importance ."

"Have none of you heard of "KISS" , why make things difficult, all you need is something like bootprog [...] Not one of you has a OS, thats anywhere near needing some thing like GRUB."

...on a forum like this a bit more of tolerance is required.

Yes, but tolerance (and respect) goes both ways.

This forum, and the FAQ, has over time created somewhat of a canon. One point in that canon includes recommending GRUB unless the person asked for something special. It isn't helpful if someone keeps popping up bashing GRUB and linking to his ASM bootprog.

In the same "canonical" way, when someone talks about a Pascal or Basic OS he's planning to write, we make sure the person in question is aware of the implications. It just doesn't do if Dex takes this as inventive for flaming you as being "conservative" or "discouraging". (To the contrary, I'm rather excited when I saw some people here managed to get a Pascal OS going, as that means we can point newcomers with a similar plan towards their prior art.)

Dex surely knows his ASM. As such, I'd still welcome him to this board.

But there are some rules that are older than him, older than me: You either respect the people in a community, or you stay out of it. I do not ask for any "special respect" just because I'm a moderator on this board. In fact, I consider myself to be an admin more than a mod, ensuring this community functions. But I ask for respect for this community, and that is including myself and Candy.

[Ryu]

I think the key point is respect to the rest of the community. Regardless, I think people will have "special respect" for moderators and I think thats fair enough. However, if you don't agree with a moderator in something on topic then by all means it should be spitted out like you would with others. When it comes down to a warning which I did remember Solar giving Dex, you should then give this "special respect" to the moderator, its simply because they got the power to do something about it when something is wrong, and it is why theres moderators in the first place is it not? Otherwise I don't see any point of being moderator.

Dex surely knows his ASM. As such, I'd still welcome him to this board.

I welcome Dex to the board if he learns that his way is not the only way, he needs to realise assembly is not the best way to do everything. For knowing such language may benifit in some business aspect and may get away with how hes acting, but in a forum and community, its vital that we all settle things is a more repectful manner. Keep in mind that not everyone knows assembly, I'm sure that if some pascal programmer randomly dumps his pascal code in forums will also be criticised. Dex may know his assembly, but I feel that letting it go so easily will not change the whole "Solar vs Dex" in the future. I think Solar is being tremendously nice for this offer. If he accepts Solar's offer I only hope that I won't come apon another flamming thread.

Dex: I don't hate you, but personally I'd slap your butt and give you 1 week detention.

[Pype.Clicker]

no guys. sorry, but you're picking the wrong way.

There's no need for "now say you're sorry or you'll be under detention" here. There's the need for "apologise and you'll be forgiven".
And in no way your posts make me feel you're wanting to forgive Dex...

I'd like all of us to meditate on this: in Japanese "to teach" is (according to Dex) the same as "to copy". At the root of all this rumbling, there's simply a disagreement on how people should teach each other. Isn't that irony ?

Dex has confirmed me he had never meant to be rude to anyone, yet he certainly ended to behave rude. And once words have been said on a board like this, it's especially hard to retire them. Proof is the fact that Solar still quote sentences of Dex that are several monthes old and for which Dex excused himself already.

And as far as things have gone, i think we can shut down this thread because chances are slim that he comes back before a while.