Kevin,

First, I appreciate your message. Let that be clear.

>I know all about Joe Bob and the history. I've been on the UT since 1998. It was a mistake, John has already acknowledged it, and he paid the price.

It really was an answer to your question where John was rude, insulting and morally wrong. ´Joe Bob´ is not the only thing to find. There are a whole number of messages where John had to admit after a whole battle of arguments that his standpoint was wrong along the way.

>Is John sometimes brutally blunt? Absolutely. He's given me some hard advice that was tough to swallow, but in the end he was right. He's helped me shake some of my prejudices about certain approaches to things. He constantly makes you think.

I see. But did you ever wonder what happens if someelse gives him a blunt statement in order to make him think? You´ll see a different John, especially when going through a medium like the internet.

>He's also the kind of person who will go the extra mile, even for a 'stranger'. Someone today told me that he once called John out of the blue, because he was having trouble coding something intricate. John had never met the guy before, but stayed on the phone with him for over an hour and helped him through it. If I were building a team, ANY team, he'd be the first guy I'd pick.

Kevin, from what I´ve read from you and others as well, John is a dedicated person and can be a technical leader in projects with multiple developers. I can´t check that. However over here there is little that proves this. It seems that John is perfectly fine when he´s regarded the guru, but you better watch out when he´s been lead.

>What I find hard to swallow is the inconsistency - that others on here break rules (like intentionally spelling the 'f' word incorrectly to fly below the radar), yet the only 'rule-breaker' worth mentioning is John.

As others find it hard to swallow to take the rude and blunt advise from someone they don´t know and never asked for that advice, and happen to have a total different viewpoint on the subject.

>That no one seems to care about a blatant falsehood (John "accosting" Bill Gates)...or that someone turned away a potential technical offering to the community, just because of who John is.

I have no opinion in this matter. It is between the writer of this message an John himself.

>That it's OK for someone to say that John has gone from technical leader to someone who just wants to argue, and yet it's horrible when John states what some of the reactions to Craig's book have been.

Craig did not ask for this opinion. John, is always stuffing his opinions through our mouths. And if you´re honest and look at his last 100 messages there is not much technical to find, yet many arguments. I´ve tried to get technical discussions with him many times, but he choosed not to go to that level with me.

With regards to crystal reports. I´ve been a crystal developer for a long time and do regard myself as an advanced developer in this area. I do use the event model to for example move, add and format objects on the report at runtime. AFAIK, I was the first one who did include dynamic pictures on a crystal reports in VFP a few years ago. Craig asked me how this worked and wanted to include this in his book. I honestly don´t know if he did.

Personally I don´t bother in looking for books in integrating crystal reports, because the technical documents give me enough detail to work it out myself (Even if it costs me a whole day to find out). Much depends on the creativity of the developer not on relying on the stuff others write. It might poison your thoughts.

So I can´t say if Craigs book is a good book or not, but again, the blunt and simply rude way that John uses this in his message to Craig is discusting too me.

Walter,