>Mike,
>
>>>I don't find the UT any more or less adversarial than the other online FoxPro communities I have frequented in the past 12 years. There have always been flame wars and flamers. (Fabian Pascal, anyone?)
>
>Pascal got frustrated when we could not keep up with his furious genius as he tried to explain complex technical ideas- "furious" being the operative word! I don't see much similarity to the bovver boy behavior we see today.
>
>I'm perfectly happy for people to say anything they choose. However, that freedom is balanced by a responsibility called "sensitivity". Nobody would regard it as a freedom of speech issue if a Christian missionary decided to loudly proclaim the good news in a Mosque. Nor is it necessary for self-proclaimed dotNET converts to come to the VFP forum every day with provocative taunts. That's not freedom of speech, that's just antisocial. IMHO. So if they do it, I hope people add a TROLL ALERT post so we can ensure that no more of our technical contributors are lost to us.


Where is this thread, anyway? It seems to have been disappeared from the VFP forum by our ever-vigilant host.

IAC, I do understand your point about people becoming annoyed when they feel they are being intentionally provoked. I also think there is an oversensitivity on this subject here. Some make it sound like there is a continual nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah chorus from .NET enthusiasts. I have not seen much of that. Some have moved on but most still have a foot in both camps, VFP and .NET. I just don't think it rises to the level of religious war, as your analogy suggests. Computer languages are just tools. I don't see why it has to be so emotional. It's ironic in a way. We make our livings by being orderly thinkers, clinical, dispassionate, identifying every possibility our apps might encounter and dealing with those possibilities rationally. And yet it takes only a language choice to turn us back to the Medeival age, standing on the city wall and tipping vats of boiling oil on the invaders. Yeesh.

Just this week two second grade girls were slaughtered a few miles from here by the father of one of the girls. Now that's worth getting worked up over. But VFP vs. .NET? I don't think so.

Mike