# Comments on ObjectiveView issue 9 (no, I'm not a spambot) **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [December 12, 2006, 3:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/comments-on-objectiveview-issue-9-no-im-not-a-spambot/79144 "2006-12-12T15:52:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mark\_Collins-Cope](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@Mark\_Collins-Cope](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mark_Collins-Cope)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 3:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/comments-on-objectiveview-issue-9-no-im-not-a-spambot/79144/1 "2006-12-12T15:52:20Z")
Hi there, My name is Mark Collins-Cope, I’m editor of ObjectiveView. I’m writing this message as I’m concerned at some of the comments I’ve read in the “New! ObjectiveView #9” message thread in September. Personal integrity demands that I respond. (thread - [http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse\_thread/thread/8956d15996b8493c/03b7993c60022529?lnk=st&q=objectiveview&rnum=1&hl=en#03b7993c60022529](http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/8956d15996b8493c/03b7993c60022529?lnk=st&q=objectiveview&rnum=1&hl=en#03b7993c60022529) ) Summary - (written after I replied below) - see the original message thread afterwards - which I have commented on the points raised! - zoat (the original poster) is not connected to ObjectiveView - so don’t slag off the mag because of him. - zoat may be a spambot, but seems unlikely given limited posting history and message contents (see below) - I (Mark Collins-Cope) produce ObjectiveView basically on my own. In spare time. For no money. - ObjectiveView is meant to be a vehicle for discussing issues relevent to software development. - I try to cover all issues from different angles (pro and anti) e.g. issue 10 of OV contains a anti-ruby opinion piece. Issue 9 contained two pro-ruby articles. - In 8 years I have never made a penny from OV directly. It’s a “community venture/collaboration.” - I’m a software engineer, and am personally interested in the topics covered. Oh, and I sometimes develop in Ruby. * * * All 9 messages in topic are listed below. My comments are bracketed [\*\*\* like this \*\*\*]. I’m happy to discuss this further with anyone if they want to. From: zoat - view profile Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 07:57 Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and Ruby on Rails. [http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html](http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html) [http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf](http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf) [\*\*\* I don’t know who Zoat is, but I’m obviously happy that someone thought OV9 was worthy of putting on a newsgroup. So thanks Zoat! \*\*\*] From: William C. - view profile Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 12:27 Email: William C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Groups: comp.lang.ruby zoat wrote: > Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal has I’m not trying to troll, but calling something ‘highly respected’ while advertising it has exactly the opposite effect of what you intend. [\*\*\* I agree this is not a good technique, however I didn’t post the message. Perhaps that’s Zoat’s opinion - presumably he’s allowed to express that? NOTE: Zoat is not connected to ObjectiveView directly, and he has nothing to gain by his comments - qed we must consider them his genuine opinion??? \*\*\*] As for the issue… Yellow and orange? I think my eyes are bleeding. The orange quotes with small bold type are hard to read (until you get to 200% magnification), and the yellow borders constantly draw my eyes away from the text into their staring yellow-ness. [\*\*\* Thanks for that feedback William. I’ve taken it on board. I won’t be using those colours any more. What I would say, however, is that if the colours are the only thing you can complain about, we’re not doing too bad.\*\*\*] The mass of advertisements taking up most of the cover page also scream ‘I’m in it for the money!’ [\*\*\* Ha, ha. Okay, let me explain about ObjectiveView. I produce ObjectiveView on my own basically. It’s a big job I do mostly in my “spare” time. In the 8 years I’ve been doing it I’ve never recieved a penny directly from it. The “advertisments” are for web distribution partners. The deal there is simple, they distibute the magazine from their web-site, and we put their logo on front/inner cover. They’re not going to distribute it for nothing, and given the work I put in, I’m keen to get people reading it. That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me - perhaps you (all) disagree? I’m open to discussion. \*\*\*] It also seems to be heavily biased towards Extreme Programming. While I love the idea of XP and some of its techniques are a lifesaver for me, I have a hard time believing that ‘the one true way’ exists and is ‘extreme.’ As with everything else, moderation is the key to success. [\*\*\* No it’s not heavily biased towards extreme. I cover topics that are part of the software development zeitgeist. I have my own opinions, but editing a magazine requires I keep those at bay to some degree at least, and try to cover different angles on the same topic. I have interviewed various people about XP, and if you read the interviews, you’ll see I give them some degree of a hard time about the claims for XP (or any other topic). I also have regular contributions from Doug Rosenberg - perhaps the most vociferous high profile critic of XP. See issue 7 for an interview with him about his book “XP Refactored - the case against XP.” I gave him something of a hard time too. ObjectiveView is not about promoting one approach or another, it’s about discussing / raising the pros and cons of different approaches. ] In short: They’re scaring off a lot of people before the magazine even gets read. [\*\*\* I’m not sure which particular issue you’ve raised is scaring people off. Perhaps you could clarify. I’m very interested in honest feedback. \*\*\*] – Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). From: Thomas A. - view profile Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 12:46 Email: Thomas A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Groups: comp.lang.ruby On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900 “zoat” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal > has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and > Ruby on Rails. > [http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html](http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html) > [http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf](http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf) I won’t reiterate the comments posted by William C., but what I will say is definitely _heed_ them. I agree with everything he has said. [Thomas - please see my answers to William’s points. I believe he is wrong, and have given reasons why I think so… but please let me know if you still disagree.] As for the issue, it was the first time I had read it, and I quite liked it. I have often been interested in extreme/pair programming, so it was nice to see some applications of its use. [\*\*\* thanks for that \*\*\*] As for the Ruby side of things, note that the article by Amy Hoy contains on or two deprecated uses within Ruby that ought not to have been allowed to propagate through. (c.f. ‘‘foo.type’’ should be ‘‘foo.class’’). Was she writing that article based on Ruby 1.6.X? Still, that aside, it ought to give your readership a little bit of an idea about Ruby. [\*\*\* If you’d like to send me full details (to markcollinscope AT [gmail.com](http://gmail.com)) I will update issue 9 with corrections. It’s still getting about 2k downloads a month. \*\*\*] Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add? [\*\*\* not sure who this comment is aimed at \*\*\*] – Thomas A. From: Jan S. - view profile Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 13:03 Email: “Jan S.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Groups: comp.lang.ruby On 9/25/06, Thomas A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > “zoat” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal > > has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and > > Ruby on Rails. > > [http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html](http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html) > > [http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf](http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf) > I won’t reiterate the comments posted by William C., but what I > will say is definitely _heed_ them. I agree with everything he has > said. > As for the issue, it was the first time I had read it, and I quite > liked it. I have often been interested in extreme/pair programming, so > it was nice to see some applications of its use. > As for the Ruby side of things, note that the article by Amy Hoy > contains on or two deprecated uses within Ruby that ought not to have > been allowed to propagate through. (c.f. ‘‘foo.type’’ should be > ‘‘foo.class’’). Was she writing that article based on Ruby 1.6.X? > Still, that aside, it ought to give your readership a little bit of an > idea about Ruby. > Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add? None. It seems to be a bot. [\*\*\* If Zoat is a Bot, it’s nothing to do with me/ObjectiveView. Zoat - are you there? \*\*\*] From: Paul L. - view profile Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 13:06 Email: Paul L. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Groups: comp.lang.ruby On 25 Sep 2006, at 13:46, Thomas A. wrote: > On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900 > “zoat” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal > > has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and > > Ruby on Rails. > Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add? I am wondering - why are people talking to a spambot? (Check the posting history for zoat for confirmation). [\*\*\* Hmmm… I’m reading this and answering sequentially, I will check the posting history now! Okay, it seems that Zoat posts messages about Ruby/Rails. Note that most of the messages are completely unrelated to ObjectiveView. I believe that Zoat must be a Ruby/Rails evangelist type, and he’s only posted about ObjectiveView because issue 9 contained two articles on Ruby and Rails. Perhaps he is a spambot - could be, but seems unlikely as the number of posting is quite small. \*\*\*] Paul From: James Edward G. II - view profile Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 13:30 Email: James Edward G. II [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Groups: comp.lang.ruby On Sep 25, 2006, at 7:46 AM, Thomas A. wrote: > On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900 > “zoat” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal > > has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and > > Ruby on Rails. > > [http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html](http://www.ratio.co.uk/objectiveview.html) > > [http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf](http://www.ratio.co.uk/ov9pdf.pdf) This is very old news. I’m not sure when the issue was released but the “Welcome to Issue 9” page has a February 2006 date at the bottom. [\*\*\* James is factually correct. However OV is currently produced about twice a year (if I had more time I would do it more often, maybe I will…) so issue 9 was still the latest issue at time of posting. The implication of saying something is very ‘old news’ is that it is no longer relevent, as elapsed time has made it redundant. All I can say is even now (December) it would seem to me that topics such as Ruby, Rails, Aspect/J and Ajax are as relevent as ever - so I don’t think the ‘old news’ label is appropriate. But hey, I’m not that bothered about this :-)! \*\*\*] > As for the Ruby side of things, note that the article by Amy Hoy > contains on or two deprecated uses within Ruby that ought not to have > been allowed to propagate through. (c.f. ‘‘foo.type’’ should be > ‘‘foo.class’’). Was she writing that article based on Ruby 1.6.X? > Still, that aside, it ought to give your readership a little bit of an > idea about Ruby. > Yes, I sent Amy a list of suggested improvements when the article was > originally published. I’m pretty sure she intended to post > corrections on her blog, but I don’t believe she ever got around to it: > [slash7 with Amy Hoy » Blog Archive » A Not-So-Objective View of Ruby](http://www.slash7.com/articles/2006/3/2/a-not-so-objective-view-of-ruby) > [\*\*\* Thanks for helping Amy! \*\*\*] James Edward G. II On Sep 25, 2006, at 8:06 AM, Paul L. wrote: > On 25 Sep 2006, at 13:46, Thomas A. wrote: > > > On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900 > > “zoat” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal > > > has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and > > > Ruby on Rails. > > Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add? > I am wondering - why are people talking to a spambot? (Check the > posting history for zoat for confirmation). [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/msg/17a068913ce02cef](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/msg/17a068913ce02cef) [\*\*\* For the record, here’s the content of that URL: "I starting a Knowlege Manament project and would like to have as reference the best “Wiki” system implemented using Ruby. This project is intended to use a non linear Wiki system like TiddlyWiki (see [http://www.tiddlywiki.com](http://www.tiddlywiki.com)) and also a full cosmology implementation of the Personal Brain functionality (see [http://www.thebrain.com](http://www.thebrain.com)). I have looked around about some, but it semeed to me not be able to know its current status e.g. instiki. So can anybody help me on that? Roberto Nogueira [http://holoflux.wordpress.com](http://holoflux.wordpress.com)" I think the implication here is that zoat is a real person! :-)! \*\*\*] James Edward G. II From: M. Edward (Ed) Borasky - view profile Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 13:34 Email: “M. Edward (Ed) Borasky” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Groups: comp.lang.ruby Paul L. wrote: > On 25 Sep 2006, at 13:46, Thomas A. wrote: > > On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:00:13 +0900 > > “zoat” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > Issue #9 of ObjectiveView [pdf], a highly respected on-line journal > > > has a sort of Ruby Special: lots of articles devoted to Ruby, and > > > Ruby on Rails. > > Was that the sort of feedback you were after, if any, I might add? > I am wondering - why are people talking to a spambot? (Check the > posting history for zoat for confirmation). > Paul And _I_ am wondering how a spambot got to be a “member” of our “club”. [\*\*\* Well, about that I no idea. I don’t think it’s a spambot actually - see above, but I could be wrong… \*\*\*] From: William C. - view profile Date: Mon 25 Sep 2006 14:08 Email: William C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Groups: comp.lang.ruby Paul L. wrote: > I am wondering - why are people talking to a spambot? (Check the > posting history for zoat for confirmation). > Paul Because… I… Um… Okay, it fooled me. -sigh- 100.times { puts “I will not talk to spambots.” } [\*\*\* 100.times { puts “I will not talk to spambots.” } if haveVerifiedThatItReallyIsASpamBot \*\*\*] * * * A few final comments that I hope you’ll be interested in discussing with me. 1. What is Spam? I hate bloody spam. I get a ton in my email box every day, and it pisses me off. However, I have also been using internet news groups for 20-odd years, and in that time I have read literally hundreds of announcements that are directly relevent to the newsgroup topic - _without_ everyone on the group having a hernia about the message 😉 If someone sent “buy your viagra here” to this newsgroup, I’d be with you 100% in banning the person who posted it. But an OnTopic message about a Free Magazine that is of value (in this instance) to the Ruby community - come on - chill out a bit! :-)! I _do_ - personally - sometimes post message to relevent newsgroups about OV - usually without any negative feedback - and checking with moderators first (but I didn’t post anything connected to the thread above). 1. Commercial Gain (put your sense of humour hat on please … switch to non hernia chill out mode… 🙂 There seems to be a theme in the above thread that implies “commercial gain” is bad. (Note here, as I said above, OV is not for direct commercial gain). Well, some people on this group are definately interacting to help them do their job. For which they are paid. Of course, the content is on-topic, so that’s okay. But aren’t they getting commercial gain from their postings - well I’d say they are ;-)! And say someone wrote a really cool (but paid for) product that really helped Ruby developers. Wouldn’t it be of benefit to the Ruby community to know about it? And if it turned out the product was really a pile of shite, well that would become apparent from the messages - and the Ruby community would still benefit (by not buying the crap product)… So to me it would seem okay to have on-topic announcements even if they are for commercial gain… Call me a sophist :)! 1. Assuming the worst… A general life point, that applies to this message thread as well. When dealing with a situation with many unknowns (like not actually what the deal was for the logos on the front page) you have two choices: assume the best, or assume the worst. By assuming the best - you may be wrong - but until you actually know that, it is the best option - because assuming the worst will often lead to dissing people who don’t deserve to be dissed. This will seriously piss of the people being dissed, and in turn will create conflict - and we don’t need that unnecessarily… ??? btw: I’m not a saint, I’ve made that mistake many times… but have eventually learned a lesson from it… :-)! Ciao and thanks. Mark. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Collins-Cope](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@Mark\_Collins-Cope](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mark_Collins-Cope)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 9:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/comments-on-objectiveview-issue-9-no-im-not-a-spambot/79144/2 "2006-12-12T21:30:39Z")
On Dec 12, 2006, at 8:50 AM, Mark Collins-Cope wrote: > As for the Ruby side of things, note that the article by Amy Hoy > contains on or two deprecated uses within Ruby that ought not to have > been allowed to propagate through. (c.f. ‘‘foo.type’’ should be > ‘‘foo.class’’). Was she writing that article based on Ruby 1.6.X? > Still, that aside, it ought to give your readership a little bit of an > idea about Ruby. > [\*\*\* If you’d like to send me full details (to markcollinscope AT > [gmail.com](http://gmail.com)) I will update issue 9 with corrections. It’s still getting > about 2k downloads a month. \*\*\*] 1. On page five 5.times{ puts “Mice!\n” } is not very Rubyish. The \n should go. 2. On page six it says, “This converts a Range object of (1…10) to an Array using the method to\_a, which is inherited from the Object class.” Range#to\_a comes from the mixin Enumerable, actually. 3. On page six RegEx is listed as a basic Ruby type. The class name is actually Regexp. 4. On page six mysterytype.type and (1…2).type should be mysterytype.class and (1…2).class. Object#type is deprecated. 5. On page seven, one sentence says “It [Enumerable] provides fun functions like each (for looping)…” Another says, “Enumerable relies on the implementing class (Array, Hash) to provide its own each function to make everything work.” Those are opposites. The second one is correct. 6. On page seven the example [‘monkey’,‘cheese’,‘pants’].each { | thing| print “I put #{thing} on my head!\n” } would be better as [‘monkey’,‘cheese’,‘pants’].each { |thing| puts “I put #{thing} on my head!” }. 7. Similarly, on page seven, using\_yield { |word,num| puts “#{word} – {num} times!” } should be using\_yield { |word,num| puts “#{word} – #{num} times!” }. Note that I made three changes that time, not two. I corrected a typo. 8. On page nine, the One Last Trick section claims you won’t get a redefinition warning, but you will if you put the earlier code and this code in a text file and run them with Ruby’s warnings enabled. Hope that helps. James Edward G. II ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Collins-Cope](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@Mark\_Collins-Cope](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mark_Collins-Cope)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/comments-on-objectiveview-issue-9-no-im-not-a-spambot/79144/3 "2006-12-13T22:27:45Z")
Mark Collins-Cope wrote: > [snip a lot of stuff] Actually, I think the spambot accusations were mostly meant to _cough_ subtly indicate to zoat that his actual contribution to number of posts ratio is quite low. (Hold the pots and kettles.) IIRC, the posts were mostly a link to some article on the web, accompanied with a brief digest of it - usually a copy/paste of the intro blurb in the original; the only personal content I can recall was getting insulted. Which happened in the thread you refer to, the flies got drawn to the flame, and the shrapnel hit your magazine too as it got attention. So I think the fact ObjectiveView got nagged at is more coincidence than being blatantly horrible, as it suddenly appeared on the radar of people feeling bitchy at that moment. (All the judgemental quotes you listed seemed like nitpicking at first glances, though I haven’t bothered to check for completeness.) David V. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Collins-Cope](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@Mark\_Collins-Cope](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mark_Collins-Cope)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/comments-on-objectiveview-issue-9-no-im-not-a-spambot/79144/4 "2006-12-18T16:35:32Z")
David, You’re more than likely right. Thanks for replying. Btw: updates to Issue 9 will be out just after xmas. Ciao, Mark