Faster for() loops?

Make that 4. I suspect that many others controlling themselves and just waiting for this recurring flamefest to die.

Who knows why you cannot simply comply with the customs of these groups. They are among the best usenet has to offer.

Indeed. Having just read the thread it has only just dawned on me (after 18 years reading USENET) what "top posting" is. I always thought it was posting a reply to the first message in a thread instead of replying to the specific one you were answering - something that would throw anyone off the trail... especially with threadded newsreaders.

But now it appears it's something so small - the order of text within a message. My God... how anal some people are. Ok, that's unfair, but only just.

I can see how a top-posting may be harder to speed-read than a bottom-posting but kill files? Abuse? Posting nagging comments to the thread without actually furthering the discussion?

You know, people are clever. They can figure out messages. I don't see how your personal quests do anything but make you feel important.

I don't know. This thread amazes me. It simply amazes me.

Take a look at the context in groups.google.com. One poster (initials JB) was asked not to top-post. He made a top-posted followup. He was reminded again. He replied with personal abuse, and has continued to do so.

Most of us don't killfile posters for top-posting. People are killfiled for being rude and abusive, especially when they do so in response to good advice.

If you joined this thread already in progress, I can see how you might think we're heaping abuse on top-posters. That's not what's going on.

These groups have a high proportion of lurkers who seldom or never post, a fair number who post semi-regularly, and a core who have been here for years and contribute regularly for the benefit of all. It's often these core posters that ask for usenet rules of courtesy to be followed - they put a lot of time and effort into helping people here, and all they ask in return is a little politeness. Personally, I can't see any reason not to follow conventions - you say you understand that top-posting annoys people, yet you continue to do it.

Since you seem to have lost track of the history here, I'll summarise it. A poster ("Flash Gordon") replied to your post with useful information, along with a request that you follow usenet conventions to make the thread easier for everyone. It's only when you completely ignored that request that you got a curt reply - and you responded with a personal insult. That's what got this thread rolling.

If you are on the phone to someone, and they ask you to speak a bit louder, would you ignore the request? If they asked you a second time, would you call them a "prick" ? If you are visiting someone's house, do you put your feet on the table just because you do it at home? Or do you light up a cigarette without asking, because that's your "personal style" ? No, any time you interact with other people, you are polite and respectful, and follow the conventions already established. Usenet is nothing special in this regard.

Yet you bottom post anyway. Probably because you have just followed the convention because that is the normal and polite thing to do.

Since the posts won't get read by a number of skilled people otherwise it is useful advise, as well as the long standing practice.

No, my initial reply contained one or two lines about posting style and many lines of reply to the actual message. I was possibly a little short in that one line but it was not kill filing or abuse and nor was it a post not forwarding the discussion. I believe the same applies to most if not all posts I have made where I have requested that people not top post.

No, we do it because we are not prepared to put in the effort to deal with the mess top-posting makes of a thread and would prefer that people follow long standing conventions than that they were ignored and received no assistance.

It amazes me that people who defend top posters assume that those requesting newcomers follow the long standing convention of bottom posting assume that all we ever do is complain about peoples posting style and abuse them for it without bothering to check.

Conventions are standards that are agreed to by all or most of the participants. The prohibition against top-posting is not one of them, except in the mind of a few zelots. You are free to express your opinion that you think top-posting is impolite, but when you try to assign any authority to that opinion, don't be surprised if someone like me calls you on it.

All these analogies are of one-on-one interactions. Usenet involves many-to-one interactions. One person's request for what he thinks is politeness has to be weighed with what others in the group think. Just because one person is pissed whenever he sees top-posting that does not mean everyone in the group, or even a majority of the group, is similarly pissed. I just don't care. But I do care when people who are self-appointed Internet cops try to make people feel like they have done something wrong when in fact their crime was minimal or non-existent.

-Robert Scott Ypsilanti, Michigan

The vast majority of long-term Usenet readers have lost whatever faith in the educability of the human race that they might ever have had.

So when another person starts top-posting and insisting that they have some divine right to ignore long-standing protocols that have developed to ease communication in these groups, we just make use of the scoring features on our news-reading programs.

Those who don't use news-readers with scoring appear to use killfiles instead.

You'll never hear them complain because they can't hear you talk anymore.

There *is* a reason long-standing cultures develop protocols for communication, and it's not just to annoy others.

cheers, Rich.

As I said before, I can't speak for the group, but as a long-term reader I can say what I see as a rough summary of opinions expressed here (in c.a.e., at least). Of course, I can't summarise un-expressed opinions of people who don't care one way or the other.

And again, it's not so much the top-posting itself that is impolite. There are other groups where top-posting is considered the norm, and receives no objections - just as there are probably groups where html posting or SMS language is considered normal. It's the arrogant disrespect for common conventions, and the "I don't care what others think, I'll make my own rules" attitude that is impolite.

The personal insult was a personal post to a single person, making the analogies valid (IMHO, of course). But if you prefer, replace the phone call or the house visit with a town-hall public meeting. We are still talking about conversations between real people who dislike being name-called.

No one claims that everyone in the group, or the majority in the group, get annoyed by top-posting. But (based on this thread, and countless others before it), the majority of those *who express an opinion* dislike top-posting.

Remember, the "crime" in question was not top-posting - it was deliberate, repeated top-posting after receiving a polite request to stop it, followed by a personal insult, although it's still minor in the grand scheme of things.

(snip)

(snip)

Gulliver would perhaps have called that the battle of top postians vs bottom postians ;)

FWIW (very little, I suspect, I'm not sure why I'm bothering)...

I for one don't find top-posting "rude" per se, but I do find failure to trim quoting "rude." IME, top-posters are the most egregious offenders -- if they can't be bothered to put their comments in context, they surely can't be bothered to trim irrelevent quotes.

I do find top-posts harder to read, and am more likely to skim and skip them. That's really the choice every poster has to make. If the post is hard to read, fewer people will put the effort into reading it. If you don't want people to actually read your post, top-posting is a good way to discourage them.

I am most reluctant to respond to top-posts, because the flow of the conversation is all messed up, and it's usually not worth the effort to reformat. So if you want the last word, perhaps its better to top post.

Finally, I don't plonk posters, I plonk threads. I was hoping for a little more useful content out of this one, but it's probably in vain. I've held on longer than I normally do, and I won't be here much longer.

Regards,

-=Dave

Most posts are *not* top posted, and this includes yours, therefore it has been implicitly agreed upon by the majority of participants.

Had you checked the history of comp.lang.c you would find that this has been the case for a long time, and also that the people who advocate top-posting are *not* in general long time participants and that almost every post by a long time participant in comp.lang.c on the subject has been against top-posting and in favour of bottom and middle posting.

Feel free, but it is still true that the majority of the regulars on comp.lang.c have only posted messages against top-posting and for bottom/middle posting.

And the majority of the regulars in comp.lang.c consider top posting to be impolite.

Most of the regulars do not respond because they agree with the posts regulars (do I count as a regular yet?) or semi-regulars make against top posting.

So far I have not seen any of those more knowledgeable than me from comp.lang.c post in favour of top posting, and the posts from those comp.lang.c regulars that have participated in this sub-thread have all been against it.

I, for one, didn't see a need to post a "Me too!" signifying agreement with the people who asked you not to top-post, as my -assumption- was that you were a reasonable person who would be able to learn upon hearing an idea once instead of having to have it repeated multiple times. Was that a misjudgement on my part??

"the vast majority" don't read literally hundreds of technical messages every day and try to keep them mentally straight so they can give the right advice to the right person. "the vast majority" don't spend hours every day doing free technical research and consulting for other people.

And how many regulars from comp.lang.c have come out in favor of top-posting? Exactly none. This has been hashed out so many times that most feel no need to chime in.

We (c.l.c) don't presume to speak for comp.arch.embedded, of course.

Brian

Right. If a person is a jerk about something like this, he's likely going to a jerk down the line about other stuff. HE is the one who wants help, yet can't bring himself to behave in a vaguely polite manner.

Why should any of us bother with him? I for one won't, as mentioned he immediately went into the killfile.

Brian

Well said - my feelings entirely.

Ah. Erm. Hmmm. Ooops. Touché.

Steve

In article snipped-for-privacy@ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca (Walter Roberson) writes: > In article , > Joe Butler wrote: ... > >Only 2 or 3 people told me not to top post. That's 3 out of 1000? 3 out of > >10,000? Who knows. That suggests to me that the vast majority of people > >don't give a damn. > > I, for one, didn't see a need to post a "Me too!" signifying agreement > with the people who asked you not to top-post, as my -assumption- was > that you were a reasonable person who would be able to learn upon > hearing an idea once instead of having to have it repeated multiple > times. Was that a misjudgement on my part??

In general I ignore all articles that are toppostings and all articles that do not quote anything from the article responded to.

If your counting bytes, all I can say is that you better make sure your project does suffer from 'requirements creep'! While it *may* be an interesting exercise to find the most efficient compiler, coding style in the form of the for loop in this thread, will also impact the efficiencies. I would bet there are plenty of other areas to save space (i.e., how many useless libraries are being linked in?-a compiler issue, or, what architectural changes should be made to your design such as getting rid of large amounts of shared variables-do they really need to be shared?). OTOH, if you are in the $10 retail produce area then saving $0.20 over the next processor in the line may be worth all the extra engineering time. Somehow, after living thought many sides of this problem, throwing hardware at it is usually the best approach. Just a personal opinion from experience, your mileage and situation may vary..... John

Joe Butler wrote:

and sometimes I like bottom....(also in posting too... (are smilies allowed? :) ....)) Wow, with all the other issues there are in this forum to discuss, I can't believe how anal some ppl are....sheesh! John

You know, most mail clients have a setting to top or bottom post on replies. Conformance to the guidelines is something that should be considered if one wants to be a 'good citizen,' (IMO, that what makes ppl civilized) unless of course you get some satisfaction by giving anal retentive ppl high blood pressure and even more, instill in them even further need for their crusade. I especially like it when they berate ppl for a miscue of non-conformance. Was it because they got sand kicked in their face when they were in first grade and they made it the lifes work to 'exercise power' over ppl? Wow, some ppl really need to get a life. lol John