George,

Against my better judgement I wanted to weigh in on this.

I say against my better judgement because I don't want to add to the noise. This forum is an excellent technical resource, and I have striven to limit myself to postings of that nature.

I just wanted to compliment you on your even-tempered way of dealing with this and similiar flame wars in the recent past. Your patience and your focus on resolution instead of escalation are commendable. Even more impressive has been your ability to shrug off the sometimes infantile attacks levied at you. Others here could learn from your example.

I also make it a point to read your technical postings. As that recent API thread we were involved shows, you have much to share here.

I just thought I would point out that what I have seen here in the past couple of months has been a lot of very high quality insight and postings from the very same people who unfortunately, take up arms and lash out at each other rather recklessly.

The issue here is not the various topics that these threads are about, it is the manner in which they are conducted.

You regularly strive to emphasize the "Professional" portion of your title, and leave the "Most Valuable" part to the judgement of your peers. Alas, that more here do not follow your lead.

You have shown with your comments that you are someone who many here could learn from (and I am just not referring to FoxPro).

Since my background is in Philosophy, and I so rarely get to use it directly in Programming ;) , I will end this with a quote that sums things up here pretty well I think:

"Why one contradicts. One often contradicts an opinion when it is really only the tone in which it has been presented that is unsympathetic."

I think Mr. Nietzsche would agree with me that you are among the wise men here Mr. Tasker. You are a role model for the MVP program, and those who are lacking this trait are doing nothing but detracting from their technical authority IMHO.


Sincerely,
Bill Caputo SUTM