Idiot mailing lists
I recently joined a mailing list that will remain nameless. The first thing that struck me about this was how…well..amateurish it was. This wasn’t your average bunch of morons busily yanking one another’s laughably sized genitalia, this was a whole new magnitude of incompetence and idiocy.
Oh alright, the list shall not remain nameless. It is in fact the portlets mailing list on yahoo. I have a vested interest as a portal vendor, so I thought it’d be a good place to hang out to see what sort of issues people have and suchlike.
Gosh, how could I possibly be more wrong? The posts on the list can be broken down into three broad categories.
The first, and most prevalent, is job postings. Every little turd pops up and says they want a documentum or (insert random obese legacy system that possibly uses portal in its marketing blurb) guy. In fact, the only thing that all the postings have in common is how little they have to do with JSR168.
The second type of posters are vendors posting announcements. This likewise gets awfully boring after a while.
The final sort are posters who apparently have next to no grasp of the English language, use obscene things like Websphere, and are bewildered by installers of any sort. Now, while I can with all honesty say that I have nothing against Indians per se, I DO have trouble thinking that anyone who is unable to express themselves successfully and formulate coherent sentences is blessed with anything approaching intelligence. To be fair, it’s far more baffling when it’s someone like Andy Oliver who speaks the one language and STILL manages to be incoherent, but I digress.
The whole experience reminded me of how many mailing lists so many of us are on, and how much junk there is out there. While it’s generally acceptable to be on a list with 1 smart guy to every 10 turdburglers, the portlet list seems excel at coming nowhere close to that elusive ratio.
Perhaps all it takes is a snowball effect, where a bunch of interested non-spastic people choose to participate, and that results in other like-minded people participating. On the other hand, it’s also equally likely that some lists are just full of wankers and trying to raise the bar is likely to be about as effective as pissing into the wind.
August 9th, 2004 at 11:30 pm
Usually it’s the other way around. A good list (or newsgroup) will start off populated mostly by clueful people. Generally, these people will have been talking amongst themselves for a while, and decide that it’s time to take the discussion public. Sooner or later, word gets out that this is a place where clueful people gather.
This will cause the clueless to start filtering in, hoping either to leech off the knowledge of the clueful by asking lots of questions, or to pretend they belong in the clued group by answering them (usually embarrassingly incorrectly).
These imposters come slowly at first, then in increasing waves of cluelessness. The original list members will try to hold back the tide for a while, then move on to a private list somewhere, leaving the huddled masses to themselves. (The private list will be a vibrant, happy place for about six months, then go completely silent when everyone on it realises that (a) there’s nothing left to talk about, and (b) they hate each others guts anyway).
Amusingly enough, the other thing that happens six months later is that the first wave of clueless list-invaders start to reminisce about how much better the list was before the clueless wankers who came after them arrived, and eventually leave. This cycle will continue until the list is completely dead. Sometimes this takes several years.
On the other hand, sometimes someone starts a mailing-list without an initial, clueful membership in the hope that its name alone will attract sufficient clues to make it worthwhile. I suspect the portlet list falls in this category.
August 9th, 2004 at 11:35 pm
For your biling pleasure, a very special announcement…
The Jakarta Commons team is happy to announce the release of Commons BeanUtils 1.7. This is an important service release intended to help downstream applications solve dependency issues. The dependency on commons collections (which has become problematic now that there are two incompatible series of commons collections releases) has been factored into a separate optional sub-component plus a small number of stable and mature org.apache.commons.collections packaged classes which are distributed with the BeanUtils core. This arrangement means that the BeanUtils core sub-component (which is the primary dependency for most downsteam applications) can now be safely included on the same classpath as commons collections 2.x, 3.x or indeed neither.
The distribution now contains alternative jar sets. The all-in-one jar contains all classes. The modular jar set consists of a core jar dependent only on commons logging and an optional bean collections jar (containing classes that provide easy and efficient ways to manage collections of beans) which depends on commons collections 3.
My head just exploded.
August 10th, 2004 at 1:15 am
nothing beats apache geroniomo mailing list.
August 10th, 2004 at 3:40 am
PLEASE HELPING MY ASSIGNMENT. I HAVE TWO CLASSEZ. HOWTO CALL ONE CLASS METHOD ‘private String getFoo()’ FROM OTHER CLASS?
AND HOW DO I MAKE SESSION BEAN FROM CLASS?
THANKKKTTYYYOOUUUU!
August 10th, 2004 at 4:24 am
Hello Please,
I am very much looking to deploy a portlet in websphere but keep getting error
I was thinking to read manual or search archive, but I cannot be fuckin bothered. Please Help, VERY URGENT
August 10th, 2004 at 4:32 am
It doesn’t only happen to mailing lists. Most forums and online comunities get so full of repeating questions, repeating answers, and the usual “yanking”: people who can’t find their own asses if they’re sitting venerate the “Forum Spammer” God because he knows how to handle CLASSPATH.
I’d take Google any time
August 10th, 2004 at 5:19 am
Hello,
Windbag Enterprises offers you the chance to be abused as a janitor for the privies in which our middle management execs constantly jerk off. We offer premium pay just below social security rates. Your qualification must include an MBA from Harvard or Yale.
If this did arouse your interest, please contact our recruitment officer I. Emma Slutt.
August 10th, 2004 at 6:19 am
Junior Java Software engineer required immediately.
Essential - Must have intimate knowledge of Java,J2EE,Messaging,AOP,XML,JDBC,full development lifecycle, able to lead a team when necessary, 9 years experience with Java, Design Patterns, Websphere, Weblogic, JBuilder, Eclipse, SQL, PL/SQL,database administration,Network adminstration, device drivers, financial applications, IIS, LDAP Servers, Tomcat, Linux, Unix, Windows, VB, .Net and several scripting languages.
Helpful - At least three months experience.
Salary negotiable between 1 and 3 Euro per hour.
August 10th, 2004 at 6:35 am
1 AND 3 EURO AND HOUR? WHERE APPLY?
August 10th, 2004 at 6:40 am
I don’t think it’s all that bad (is it ever with Hani’s blog) - it is possible to hide your lists from the not very clueful. (that means me).
August 10th, 2004 at 6:57 am
I don’t think it’s all that bad (is it ever with Hani’s blog) - it is possible to hide your lists from the not very clueful. (that means me).
August 10th, 2004 at 10:22 am
Hello, we’re looking for an experienced documentum guy who’s writing us some good portlets so we can make product announcements.
August 10th, 2004 at 10:22 am
Sorry.
August 10th, 2004 at 10:26 am
I think it’s “turdburglar”
August 10th, 2004 at 10:44 am
Looking for an experienced masturbater for long-term circle jerk opportunity.
August 10th, 2004 at 11:08 am
Please me forgave my poor English. I am from Delhi where have we no manuals. And we don’t know what it is this Google thing. Help me now what it means ClassCastException? Anyone knows will be great help.
August 10th, 2004 at 11:15 am
looking at these comments it’s hilarious that fate’s bitching about “idiot lists”
August 10th, 2004 at 11:46 am
HELO!!!!1!!! LOL IM CUR3NTLY WORKNG ON D3PLOYNG A J2E INVEN2RY SYSTAM ON W3BSPHER3111111!! OMG WTF LOL HOWEVER WH3N3VER W3 CHEK OUT COD3 FROM PVCS TEH MAJORITY OF IT WIL NOT RUN COR3CTLY DU3 2 JAR/WAR/EARS BNG OUT OF DAET ON TEH DEVELOPERS MACHIEN!!!1 OMG IS THEIR AN AASY WAY 2 KEP AL TH3S3 DEP3NDENCEIS IN THX??!!! WTF LOL IN ADVANCE!!11!1! WTF
August 10th, 2004 at 12:09 pm
HELLOW?! SUN?!!? Sum1 please must help me fix classloader br0ked in jdk. HELLOW?!
August 10th, 2004 at 12:24 pm
“Now, while I can with all honestly say that I have nothing against Indians per se, I DO have trouble thinking that anyone who is unable to express themselves successfully and formulate coherent sentences is blessed with anything approaching intelligence”
Mr Suleiman, Look before you leap!!
By the way, do your folk laugh at your incoherent Arabic sentences too??
August 10th, 2004 at 12:47 pm
i have some source code of c and c++ .they have their own header file.although header file are defined at the top of programe.but
still programes not work
August 10th, 2004 at 4:41 pm
Sometime before I joined a J2EE mailing list.(again a yahoo group).
What all i got was somebody posting some job opening, nothing related to J2EE as such!
August 10th, 2004 at 6:49 pm
The Indians owned America before the white man.
August 10th, 2004 at 6:53 pm
Coming from an Arab. Indians are better off than the only Arab in the java universe. Rather ask dumb questions in gramatically incorrect English than fire bullets. Tell me what this exception is or here comes the RPG…
August 10th, 2004 at 7:04 pm
Coming from an Arab. Indians are better off than the only Arab in the java universe. Rather ask dumb questions in gramatically incorrect English than fire bullets. Tell me what this exception is or here comes the RPG…
August 10th, 2004 at 7:13 pm
Top comments, guys !
ROFL !
August 10th, 2004 at 7:33 pm
Hey Prashant Rane (aka JJ), if you want to demean Arabs, at least have the guts to use your real name.
August 10th, 2004 at 8:58 pm
I think the Bile is a class act blog (inasmuch as anything wallowing in turdburgling and unmentionable tugging can be :-) ), but bringing race into the biling is stooping a bit. Indians have no corner on the market whatsover being unable to form coherent sentences. Having a decent grasp on a language (native or otherwise) is completely orthogonal to race. So let’s leave race out of the whole thing. There’s plenty of idiots to skewer - no need to go the cheap route.
August 10th, 2004 at 10:39 pm
Hani is not the only Arab in the Java universe
August 11th, 2004 at 1:12 am
We truly thank you for replying back.However we
agree by all means that our company is a small unit and we won’t be able
to serve the justice to your dynamic profile but the client database
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We would appreciate if you will send us an updated
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approach you again and take the opportunity to place you in appropriate
position as we being good recruiters consider our clients/candidates the
most valuable gift so far as company activity is concerned.We
acknowlodge your comment(one way it is a complement to us)as in terms of
an era of fascinating corporate industry one should criticise and make
an improvement to survive in global world to extend company’s existence
as separate entity and individual as a whole.
August 11th, 2004 at 2:26 pm
While I can with all honesty say that I have nothing against chinks, I do have….
While I can with all honesty say that I have nothing against nogs, I do have….
While I can with all honesty say that I am
not a racist, I do have….
What’s truly funny about all this is that
Indians are the “Indo” in Indo-European peoples
and languages and ’swastika, laltika, shubhtika,
arya, aryan’ are all Hindi words. (and holy
symbols in all ancient Indo-European cultures
and still holy in India). In fact, the Nazis used
the swastika (the german word is ‘hakenkreuz for
hooked cross) and specifically spoke Hindi while
referring to that symbol, _because_ it was used
in India.
By all means bring race into it if you want to.
But what’s really funny is that a Semite who
writes right to left is making fun of
Indo-Europeans whose language (sanskrit) is
Proto-Indo-Aryan and at the very base of the tree
from which German and English are themselved descended….
August 12th, 2004 at 12:13 pm
Do they have clowns in India?
August 20th, 2004 at 10:59 am
you know i think pres.bush sucks, i think he will do anything to stay in office or say anything to stay in, he whined around till they recounted and recounted the votes till they got sick of it and gave it to him so he could start a war…
August 23rd, 2004 at 1:34 pm
Thanks, Hani.
September 16th, 2004 at 7:21 am
Why don’t you mention the link of the list. Is it - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portlets/
April 10th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
FUCK APACHE & FUCK BUSH
Both have no accountability.
Apache writes some of the shittiest code. Just look at their beanutils classes.
PropertyUtilsBean.getPropertyDescriptor just grabs any matching method with the same name regardless of the parameters.
Struts is built on all this junk. It’s sick. The error handling is even worse.
DbUtils swallows exceptions such as DataTruncation.