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Holy wars update

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Bob Mottram 2018-10-15 17:43:31 +01:00
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19
entries/holy wars.txt
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@ -4,13 +4,12 @@ n. [from Usenet , but may predate it; common] n. flame wars over religious
issues. The paper by Danny Cohen that popularized the terms big-endian and
little-endian in connection with the LSB-first/MSB-first controversy was
entitled On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace. Great holy wars of the past have
included ITS vs.: Unix , Unix vs.: VMS , BSD Unix vs.: System V, C vs.:
Pascal , C vs.: FORTRAN, etc. In the year 2003, popular favorites of the day
are KDE vs, GNOME, vim vs. elvis, Linux vs. [Free|Net|Open]BSD. Hardy
perennials include EMACS vs.: vi , my personal computer vs.: everyone else's
personal computer, ad nauseam. The characteristic that distinguishes holy
wars from normal technical disputes is that in a holy war most of the
participants spend their time trying to pass off personal value choices and
cultural attachments as objective technical evaluations. This happens
precisely because in a true holy war, the actual substantive differences
between the sides are relatively minor. See also theology.
included ITS vs Unix , Unix vs VMS , BSD Unix vs System V, C vs Rust,
Python vs Perl, init vs systemd, etc.
The characteristic that distinguishes holy wars from normal technical
disputes is that in a holy war most of the participants spend their time
trying to pass off personal value choices and cultural attachments as
objective technical evaluations. This happens precisely because in a
true holy war, the actual substantive differences between the sides are
relatively minor. See also theology.

17
entries/religious issues.txt
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@ -1,13 +1,8 @@
religious issues
n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off holy wars
, such as What is the best operating system (or editor, language,
architecture, shell, mail reader, news reader)? , What about that Heinlein
guy, eh? , What should we add to the new Jargon File? See holy wars ; see
also theology , bigot , and compare rathole. This term is a prime example of
ha ha only serious. People actually develop the most amazing and religiously
intense attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible. The
most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the crossfire is
mumble Get a life! and leave unless, of course, one's own unassailably
rational and obviously correct choices are being slammed.
n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off holy wars,
such as What is the best operating system (or editor, language,
architecture, shell, mail reader, news reader)? See holy wars; see
also theology , bigot , and compare rathole. People actually develop the
most amazing and religiously intense attachments to their tools, even
when the tools are intangible.