"Parallel music view" misunderstanding - an attempt to explain things

[Janek Warchoł]

Hi,

there was a problem in "Parallel music view" thread on -user,
beginning with this message
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2012-10/msg00054.html.
I was worried about the situation and i decided to talk with David via
phone - it turned out that i misunderstood his emails.  I hope that i
understand David better now, so i'd like to share with you what i
learned, hoping that this will help us better understand each other.
However, i don't claim that i understand David 100% accurately.  Also,
be aware that my wording might be imperfect.

It began with:

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Urs Liska <address@hidden> wrote:
> I'd say from David's POV it wouldn't even make sense to have syntax
> highlighting, isn't it?
> And I think we _all_ agree that it's way easier to work with colored code ...

I was going to reply to the list that i think David wouldn't say that
syntax highlightning doesn't make sense.
I supposed that Urs meant
"if there would be no point in separating display format from storage
format (which seemed to be David's opinion), it would make no sense to
have syntax highlightning as well - and yet we consider syntax
highlightning useful"
but before i replied, David wrote:

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 10:12 AM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
> Do you really consider ad hominem attacks a useful contribution to the
> discussion?  You wrote nothing except the above in the middle of a full
> unabridged quote of Janek's entire mail.

My interpretation of David's words was that he felt offended and
personally attacked.  I thought that David's question was a rhetorical
one, condemning Urs for attacking David personally.

When i talked with David, he told me that he didn't consider Urs'
email a *personal* attack on himself.  David didn't like Urs' email
because in his opinion Urs was using bad rhetoric (called "ad hominem
attack" - you can read Wikipedia definition).  David's question was
not meant to be rhetorical: he was genuinely asking whether Urs
considers using /ad hominem arguments/ appropriate.

Urs answered:

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Urs Liska <address@hidden> wrote:
> I didn't consider this an attack.
> And I just wanted to make a single point to support Janek's argument,
> therefore I only made a single comment.
>
> I referenced your name to reference the context of my comment.
>
> If you feel somehow insulted by this I have to apologize.
> I should have taken more time to a) make my point in a more correct manner
> and b) to clean up the email better.

My impression was that Urs' email was polite and conciliatory.  I
supposed that by "I didn't consider this an attack" Urs meant "I
didn't consider this a personal attack".

David replied

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 10:34 AM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
> Urs Liska <address@hidden> writes:
>> I didn't consider this an attack.
>
> First you make up an unrelated claim you attribute to me, and then you
> do an "I think we all agree that this claim of David is silly".

As i said, i supposed Urs had meant a personal attack.  Thus, when
David opposed Urs' statement, i concluded that David indeed felt
personally attacked by Urs' first email.

It turned out that i was wrong.  From what i understand, David had
been offended by Urs' first mail, but he didn't feel personally
attacked (there is a subtle difference between the two, and i didn't
get it initially).  In this sentence David was just explaining why he
considered Urs' first email an /attack ad hominem/.
So it seems to me that David might have interpreted Urs' words as "I
didn't consider this an attack ad hominem" while Urs meant "I didn't
consider this a personal attack".

>> If you feel somehow insulted by this I have to apologize.
>
> I consider it more an insult to the intellect of your targeted audience.
> It is obvious that you were not trying to persuade me.

When i read this, i was worried because it seemed to me that David
didn't accept Urs' apologies.
>From what i heard on the phone, i understand that it was more like
David considered them somewhat missing the point.  In other words, Urs
seemed to apologize for attacking David personally, while David didn't
consider this a /personal/ attack but rather something else.

In that moment i was so worried that i wrote an email to David right
away, and in the result i learned that i misunderstood quite a lot.
Interesting, isn't it? :-)
I hope i got this right now, and that this "analysis" will help our community...

best,
Janek