From: pierc...@sabi.demon.co.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Subject: Re: A DTD for Personal Identity Date: 1996/10/19 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 190620721 x-nntp-posting-host: sabi.demon.co.uk x-disclaimer: Contents reflect my personal views only references: <53jegh$284@post.servtech.com> <548vf2$120@shell1.aimnet.com> organization: Home's where my rucksack's newsgroups: comp.text.sgml >>> "michael" == Michael Leventhal writes: michael> Thanks for your very lucid posts, Piercario. You obviously michael> have taken some care to prepare them and there is some useful michael> ... (dare I use the word?) information and some vigorous and michael> productive debate. Thanks for my efforts, which is welcome! I try to do my ``homework'', and reasonable agreement or disagreement are always welcome. michael> In article , michael> Piercarlo Grandi wrote: piercarl> ... "the information modeling language called SGML" or even piercarl> the more modest "possibilities of HyTime as a database view piercarl> language", you took some time off for a remedial course on piercarl> data modeling, e.g. studying the second part of Wiederhold's piercarl> "Database design", and read one of the information modeling piercarl> texts michael> I feel concerned that you may have, descending in your michael> ...err... passion for the topic into a spicy and florid ad michael> hominem attack, Ah, but here let me raise a non trivial point: it may be ad hominem, but it is an ad hominem'' _defense_, not an _attack_. Consider what Dr. Steven R. Newcomb has written replying to my raising a purely technical point, and one which, while contestable, is not so obviously without merit: srn> [ ... ] you are seriously misinformed [ ... ] srn> [ ... ] Obviously you don't know what you're talking about. [ ... ] srn> [ ... ] I refer you to the literature on the subject, which I srn> suggest you read before making more inaccurate public srn> pronouncements on this subject. [ ... ] He has even published what is in effect a no-hire (as in ``I would not hire him'') recommendation backed by his reputation: srn> [ ... ] If so, remind me not to hire you as an information srn> technology consultant; your mind is too closed to accept the srn> budgetary reality that some relations are worth capturing, but srn> not worth the trouble of classifying in detail. [ ... ] Now, this devastatingly vicious attack is not from Joe R. Poster, but from somebody that signs himself off as: * Steven R. Newcomb | President * * direct +1 716 389 0964 | TechnoTeacher, Inc. * where TechnoTeacher is a well know consulting business in thr SGML field. Dr. Steven R. Newscomb has chosen, in response to my purely technical claim that a use of SGML DTD as data schamas was improper, an (innocent but interesting) abuse of a tool inteded/optimal for other applications, to thoroughly rubbish my reputation, and has even issued what is in effect a recommendation to any readers of c.t.s not to hire me. He has done so with reckless dishonesty, for he has no material basis on which to pass such a sweeping judgement on the whole of my personal and professional figure. Even more engagingly :-), he has felt the need to send me copy of an e-letter from him to somebody else in which he accuses me of having baited and provoked him into writing that viciously worded reply. As a result I have been left with no recourse other than to demonstrate that he is not qualified to pass such sweeping judgement, despite his important looking signature lines. He has chosen, without being held back by the immorality and dishonesty of his action, to have a go at trying to destroy my future career by using not so implicitly the weight of his reputation. It is within fairness for me to impugn in self-defence his qualification to attack in such a wholesale manner my personal character and competence. It would been a display of even handedness for you to complain about his gratuitous and viciously dishonest attack on me; but curiously enough you have not issued a word of protest about that, but you have felt brave enough to protest about my fair-play self defense. As the English would say, that's not cricket, but it may be good business practice...