RE: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Cygwin/XFree86 DocBook-based FAQ Draft 2

[Suhaib Siddiqi <ssiddiqi at inspirepharm dot com>]

This thread is dead.  I do not have time for this.
Others who wish to argue do on a private basis.


Suhaib

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harold Hunt [mailto:huntharo@msu.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 8:19 PM
> To: Suhaib Siddiqi; 'cygx'
> Subject: RE: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Cygwin/XFree86 DocBook-based FAQ Draft 2
> 
> Suhaib,
> 
> > you replied, "xwin is not
> > video card dependent, GOT IT BECAUASE IT IS IMPORTANT"
> 
> Just so I don't sound like a right bloody bastard, I'd like to quote
> verbatim what I said, "Cygwin/XFree86 has no video card dependencies;
> understand that, it's important."
> 
> I said that because Cygwin/XFree86 used to be video card dependent in that
> some video card drivers did not support overlays, and there were some
> problem flags being passed to some DirectDraw functions that made it seem
> as
> if Cygwin/XFree86 was video card dependent, when it in fact wasn't.  I
> don't
> think my tone was overly strong, but I did wan't to nip in the bud any
> ideas
> that the new Cygwin/XFree86 is video card and/or DirectDraw version
> dependent.  To clarify: the current server will fall back on DirectDraw if
> DirectDraw4 is not installed, then it will fall back on GDI if DirectDraw
> is
> not installed or is not operational.  Furthermore, I saw exactly what the
> user's problem was, so I didn't want anyone to get the idea that we should
> be asking user's what their video card is as part of the troubleshooting
> process (as this would just be a wild goose chase).  Sorry if it came off
> as
> rude; I was merely trying to be stern :)
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> 
> > > > Are you going to provide two different FAQ on our Cygwin/XFree86
> URL?
> > Huh?  What is accusative here?  I am asking a question.
> 
> Well, to understand why I took offense at this we'll have to bring in the
> definition of "rhetorical question", from
> 
> http://www.clearcf.uvic.ca/writersguide/Pages/RhetRhetQuestion.html,
> 
> "A rhetorical question implies that the answer is obvious--the kind of
> question that does not need actually to be answered. It is used for
> rhetorically persuading someone of a truth without argument, or to give
> emphasis to a supposed truth by stating its opposite ironically."
> 
> The form of your question implied that I was going to post my draft FAQ to
> the Cygwin/XFree86 site soon and that this would be bad thing.
> Unfortunately, we can only convey our intentions through textual
> expression;
> when I read that grammatical form, I took it as an attack.
> 
> A more tactful way to voicing your concerns could have been something like
> this, "Motif questions, as well as some others are missing... you are
> going
> to add these before the FAQ draft becomes the FAQ final, right?"  And to
> that I could have only one reply, "Yes, of course, I'm not quite done
> yet."
> 
> Harold