"You don't understand" vs "I don't understand"

tachyon, ++ for suggesting the use of Net::Telnet and Net::SSH, but...

...is it necessary to tell a person "you don't understand"?

Please keep in mind that many of us are not native english speakers, and sometimes is really difficult to explain in English things that one could easily say in Italian, German, Hungarian... whatever! (Actually, I am in a big mess trying to explain in English what I am thinking in Italian). Sometimes it would be better to say "I don't understand what you are asking" or, like pg, "I am not sure why you mentioned telnet here".

Don't get me wrong here: Ovid explained a simple "norm" before I did:

A personal attack is where someone takes issue with me. However, if someone takes issue with the quality of my work, that's not a personal attack. There's quite a distinction between criticizing a person and criticizing what that person produces.

Saying "You don't understand" doesn't criticize the code and, worse, one could think you criticize his ability to understand a concept; so there is a short way between "You don't understand" and "You are stupid"; and, of course, "You are stupid" would be personal attack.

Ciao!
--bronto

The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway).
--John M. Dlugosz

Comment on "You don't understand" vs "I don't understand"

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Re: "You don't understand" vs "I don't understand" by tachyon (Chancellor) on Mar 10, 2003 at 12:36 UTC
I looked at your code, and the responses and surmised that (with the execption of 1 node) the problem at hand was that you (and a number or other monks) did not realise that you can't do a straight TCP socket and expect Telnet to just work. Thus I told you what the problem was, gave you the reason, links to the protocol (so you could understand it), and two solutions. No offense was intended. Sareste soltanto stupid se foste ancora programmantesi e domandantesi perchè non funziona. Invece avete fatto la domanda ed avete la soluzione. OK so my Perl is hopefully better than my Italian! ciao tachyon s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print	[reply]
Re: Re: "You don't understand" vs "I don't understand" by bronto (Priest) on Mar 10, 2003 at 14:20 UTC
Sareste soltanto stupid se foste ancora programmantesi e domandantesi perchè non funziona. Invece avete fatto la domanda ed avete la soluzione. WOW! ++tachyon: because you tried to wrote a phrase in Italian, and the other + because you used the condizionale tense, one of the most difficult italian tenses after the congiuntivo! OK so my Perl is hopefully better than my Italian! Er... it is `:-)` But I am glad you gave it(alian) a try `;-)` Ciao! `--bronto` The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway). --John M. Dlugosz	[reply]
Re: "You don't understand" vs "I don't understand" by Anonymous Monk on Mar 10, 2003 at 11:57 UTC
I am thinking in Italian And I thought thinking in ASM was messed up! Seriously though, I don't really think in any language, thoughts seem to be their own language. or "you can only think in code, the language converters work for the machines." Translating them to english is rather tedious.	[reply]