“I Don't Like Your Examples” (2000)

Leaving aside the politics, boy does the listed example suck.

Relational databases are about relations. The trite little employee/department examples we've all seen before work because most people learning about databases immediately can understand a whole bunch of different relations that can occur here. You can think about concrete problems you might want to solve using that data -- figuring out who has to do annual reviews of what employee, doing payroll, etc. You can get a book's worth of mileage just adding things to that simple set of tables.

Meanwhile, in this example -- if the ICJ wanted to make a database of war criminals, this isn't close to how they'd do it. Storing the sort of data in the example... using Excel might be overkill, you could do that in the text editor of your choice. This isn't even a toy problem. It's not a simplified version of the real thing for teaching purposes, it's a polemic slapped in the middle of a bunch of boilerplate SQL for no other reason than because the author is bored of writing SQL tutorials and is spicing it up by throwing in a bunch of polemics. There's no connection between the material there and what the user is supposed to be learning. It's distracting. It can be nothing but distracting.

If you want to say that using business-oriented examples propagates a certain sort of politics, fine (although nobody is using Oracle for anything else, the license costs rule it out for hobbyist products). But make your examples illuminate what you want to teach, not distract from it.

I think I disagree with him here.

I tend to think that examples like his (polarizing topics) are distracting to the message of the content.

I teach students, and they are, quite literally, paying me for my knowledge and experience about that subject, not for me to distract everyone with my personal opinions about unrelated issues. I doubt that any of them even know my political beliefs.

The question I’d pose to the author is, what would he think of a book using examples he disagrees with? Let’s say for advocating for arming every American or against gay marriage.

The vast majority arguing like the author are not ok with this - it’s only good if the content fits their world view.

I realize this is from 2000 but why would anyone think this person's trite and wholly conventional political opinions are in any way interesting or noteworthy? Strange psychology this guy has, like he's just trying to rattle off as many "controversial" "issues" as he can name, with no regard for his readership... the whole thing comes across as juvenile and narcissistic.

Interesting. I'm still processing this essay.

Perhaps the problem to many is that this approach interrupts the flow necessary for fast learning. When I read a technical tome, I'm trying to understand the technical content as rapidly as I can. Trying to consider the political points, even if I agree with them, would greatly slow my learning via distraction and thus would inhibit the reason I paid for the book. It does feel a little misleading, like a bait and switch, if I had to pay for the book and this wasn't made clear somewhere: "I paid for SQL but I got political assertions instead that I could not easily skip."

I do agree that there is inadequate real political discourse, but this doesn't seem like a solution. But it's a free country, write it and see who wants to be your audience.

I thought the examples sounded more interesting than your usual ones and honestly I would prefer those to whatever user login example you see usually. There are probably several that I don't agree with politically, but who cares? It's still a technical book and if people like the author's previous work I don't see why the quality of it would have changed.

I really liked this article.

More and more I feel as though my life and the lives of so many people around me is cheapened as we are treated as tools to generate growth and consumption.

I long for a world where I and those around me are working to make a world that has moved far beyond the consumerism and the competition attitude. I want to collaborate with my fellow people, not compete with them. This is possible for all digitizable value, but it takes work to build a library of wealth not held down by intellectual property restrictions.

It is possible though.

God forbid we should be distracted with Real Life when reading a book about databases.

I think a lot of the criticisms of his approach hinge on making false equivalences (what if he was a white nationalist!) and we should be careful of that. His examples are partisan, but not particularly extreme to my eyes.

If the author wants to write a book with an inbuilt smaller audience more power to him - the more extreme it gets then presumably the smaller the audience gets.

way easier to understand complex syntax than reading yet another foo(bar) example.

One of very few Amazon reviews I have ever posted was a 5-star of Feuerstein's PL/Sql Best Practices. I might not have done so, but for a one-star review given by somebody unhappy with Feuerstein's dedication of the book to Palestinian women (I think it was). I was not out to endorse (or damn) Feuerstein's views on the Middle East, but I thought that the content of the book should be reviewed on its own terms.

I barely know who Kissinger is but the fact that the author admits it's controversial (in contrast to say calling Hitler a war criminal) is enough for me to avoid this guy's books at all cost.

If I read a technical book I presume the examples are objective. If I would have read it without knowing anything beforehand I would take it literally and all of a sudden become a Kissinger hater without realizing it's actually a subjective political opinion.

Reminds me of ashidakim[1], a website that works adds into Zen Koans:

The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them who were intimate friends promised one another to observe seven days of silence.

On the first day all were silent. Their meditation had begun auspiciously, but when night came and the oil lamps were growing dim one of the pupils could not help exclaiming to a servant: "Fix those lamps."

The second pupil was surprised to hear th first one talk. "We are not supposed to say a word," he remarked.

"You two are stupid. Why did you talk?" asked the third.

"I am the only one who has not talked," concluded the fourth pupil. It can be very difficult for people in Western culture to be silent. This is especially true for any person who talks for a living, such as a Columbus criminal defense attorney. Generally Westerners have a negative view towards silence, where members of Eastern cultures tend to embrace it.

[1]: http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/71learningtobesilent.html

> The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw

Substitute art with anything else, it's still a political attitude. Politics relates to how we live together, or fail to live together, not something politicians do 24/7 and citizens do once every four years. And even that wasn't so (though it is) the author did point out that a lot of technical documentation do contain political examples, it's just kind of invisible and acceptable (to some people) when it's in support of the status quo, which even "not touching X with a barge pole" is. As the biography of Howard Zinn is titled: "You can't be neutral on a moving train."

People who think arresting and sentencing war criminals and other issues are radical far out ideas that upset them so much they can't concentrate should write their own books. Is that too much to ask? Let's say political examples distract people, and make their life worse by some laughable, but still measurable amount. What about the people who get killed by us living in a world where such examples are a valid criticism? They don't even get to read the book and get offended. It all boils down to what class of problems you prioritize, people who read technical documentation not getting distracted or people not getting murdered. I say good on the author.

How many of the people who think the examples are "bad taste" or "polarizing" or "controversial" or other synonyms of doubleplusungood are leveraging the same criticisms in a more effective form? Dare I guess? At the heart of it, I think people really don't like it when someone flaunts not having lost what they did indeed lose or never even acquired.

> When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners. As a practical matter, a mere failure to speak out upon occasions where no statement is asked or expect from you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's, offering you a place at his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if you any of young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well. I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my powers for good." Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought, his ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.

-- John J. Chapman, Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900

You may agree with that being words to live by or not, but you cannot tell someone who lives by them to not live by them and nudge them in the slightest. To get to that point, they likely fought harder battles than you can even imagine, since you avoided them. Don't bring a soggy paper bag to a diamond fight is what I'm essentially trying to say.

Look at those responses he got from upset readers of the book. They are polite and articulate their point. Nowadays, he would get death threats.

This is horrifying. Left and right already read different news, different fiction, different philosophy, and different scientific papers. Are they also supposed to read different O'Reilly textbooks?

Granted, Kissinger should be a war criminal, but how does this press the case against him? It just creates another degree of separation in the divergent realities constructed by the two groups.

Mods, it's worth putting "(2000)" in the title.

That's the last book I'd buy from that author. If you want to write about politics, write about politics. Don't try to sneak your political views into a technical book.

Scholarly papers* on the design of atomic weapons would be better if the equations indicated how many humans would be killed.

So why cavil at the author suggesting, through the thoughful use of examples that certain modes of acting have real world consequences ?

* Undoubtedly heavily classified. But have a look at the unclassified article I have linked to in another submission on nuclear warhead reentry vehicle design...

Certain assumptions would have to be made on the density of inhabitation of the target zones.

The authors point is that publishing examples that fit our expectations of a standard example (employer & employee) is also a political statement, just that it is one in support of the status quo and therefore provokes little response. But it is still a political act, which contributes to the pervasive sense that the relationships embedded in the examples are natural rather than arbitrary and challengeable.

It’s just a book. Without your mind to give it meaning, it has no meaning. If you’re so easily offended because you’re sensitive like a mimosa, it’s capitalism, don’t buy the book.

You had better concentrate on the examples if you want to learn something; don’t be such sensitive daisies.

And it’s the author’s book, he can and may put any kind of examples he wants; when you write your own book, you get to do the same thing.

I wonder if any of the 'political' code has worked it's way via cargo-cult programming into production

In the books I've written I added references to movies that I liked as part of the examples. I remember including a "PC Load Letter" error message as a homage to Office Space. Other examples were more obscure, such an address or phone number of one of the characters in the movie.

ITT: Example after example of persons unaware of their own politics.

My main objection to the examples he gives is that a book about technology leaves little to no space to expand on these matters. I think that providing context is of utter importance in written media. In some sense, the author exerts control over the reader, as reading is all about internalising the author's thoughts, and does not give the opportunity to (immediately) ask questions. Just stating (hidden) opinions about things that are off-topic, abuses the trust that a reader puts into the author. Correspondingly, such examples borderline on being rude and are likely to result in strong reactions when discovered.

A well-balanced treatise on something that traces the author's line of thought gives the reader the opportunity to consider his own opinion in the light of the information that is being presented. However, as I wrote above, a book about technology is not the right place for an excursion into the history of war-crimes, and a technology author would first have to convince the reader that he is actually eligible to talk about these matters.

Still, and as I already wrote in some child comment, the author is correct that current technology-books often contain a "hidden" agenda (software being framed as something that primarily satisfies commercial or business interests), and it is also correct that democracies should more openly embrace discussion on polarising topics instead of tabooing it. I would argue that these two issues are best addressed in the following way:

a) Authors should actively think about whether examples are sufficiently neutral, e.g., talk about a database for the organisation of your "birthday party" (all people have birthdays, and many people celebrate them in one way or another) instead of talking about the database managing your companies' employees (at least if the title of your book is not "Relational Databases in Human Resources"). Note that being neutral is different from being uncontroversial. For example, when writing about cognitive neuroscience it is impossible to not (at least implicitly) state that humans are "just animals", although this statement surely upsets people's religious feelings. Yet the statement is still on-topic and neutral, since it is the very premise of this line of research.

b) Non-fictional texts are intrinsically about providing context, and deviating into the off-topic is only watering down the value of these writings. In the context of written communication, democracy is best advanced by providing opinion-pieces which are clearly labelled as such, and (in a perfect world) refer to completely unopinionated material for context. So if you want to advance democracy, embrace discussing your world view, but only when you know that your audience is ready for that (e.g. by clearly labeling your writings as such, or by making sure that your peer actually wants to talk about this topic), and back-up your claims.

re: this comment from the author:

> I believe that just about every technical book comes with a body of politics, an ideology that governs and usually restricts its example set. We don't notice the political slant because it reflects the dominant viewpoint in our society and is thus invisible.

It's not just mainstream technical books that are immersed in a dominant political ideology. In his book "Disciplined Minds", Jeff Schmidt makes a strong argument that political and ideological training and qualification play a major part in the process of creating new professional workers:

> Unlike employees whose actions can be prescribed in unlimited detail, these workers have to understand their employer's interests, because there are moments when that understanding is all they have to go on. Employers designate these special nonmanagement workers "professionals".

> Preparing to become a professional is fundamentally different from preparing to become a nonprofessional, because the blank sheet professionals face holds an infinity of possibilities, and there is no way to teach or even list them all. Professional training therefore centers around ideology, because ideology guides the subtle decisions and creative choices that the professional makes as she fills the blank sheet. (The professional's work, in turn, propagates the ideology that guides it.) Even those whose range of discretion is humiliatingly insignificant require the special preparation: The system apparently considers ideology to be of paramount importance. Thus, if the work of a particular occupation is in part creative -- that is, if the decisions are not _purely_ routine or rote -- preparing and qualifying for that occupation will include a _major_ ideological component involving years of postsecondary schooling, even if the creative work is a _minor_ part of the job.

> This accounts for the seeming disparity between amount of preparation and authority on the job. ("After all the schooling I went through, they hardly let me make a difference around here.") And it accounts for the seemingly irrelevant part of the schooling required to get the paper credentials that allow one to work as a professional. Despite years of student opposition, these qualifying assignments are still imposed, precisely because they are _not_ irrelevant. They get the individual used to the kind of political framework within which the skills and techniques of the profession are applied.

> When employers designate certain jobs "professional" and insist that employees have professional training -- not just the technical skills that seem sufficient to do the work -- they must have more in mind that efficiency. Hierarchical organizations need professionals, because through professionals those at the top control the political content of what is produced, and because professionals contribute to the bosses' control of the workforce itself. It is crucial for the functioning and survival of the institution -- and the hierarchical system of production as a whole -- that the employees who make decisions do so in the interests of the employer. As we will see, the employer's control of the professional's creative work is assured by the ideological discipline developed during professional training. And the employer's control of the workforce is maintained in part through the professional's elitism and support for hierarchy in the workplace. The preparation process develops, and the qualification process measures, the student's willingness and ability to accept ideological direction from future employers. The one who has met the requirements -- the "qualified professional" -- can be trusted to do what is "politically correct" when making decisions and creative choices at work.

Schmidt's book is is fantastic, and I thoroughly recommend it. See e.g. http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/

I agree with cwyers that the example are bad. Databases (relational ones, anyway) are good at describing relationships between clearly defined entities. The reason that people use Employees and Managers or Sales and Month in books is because they are clearly defined relationships and entities at the most basic level.

Those kinds of super-dumbed-down examples serve a purpose: to provide a prototypical way of thinking about the technology and how it's best used.

I mostly agree with the author about his politics, as far as I can tell from what he wrote. But I think his agenda got ahead of him. I had really hard time going to a small religious school when I was a kid because a daily dose of "Jesus says . . ." seemed to me to be completely irrelevant to a math class. It was, for lack of a better term, an unnecessary context switch. WTF am I supposed to be thinking about right now? What I think or what I believe?

But examples of a war criminal database just don't fit when you're trying to teach someone to (hopefully) do more than just copy and paste some code. The point of these examples is to provide a mental template for how to think about relationships between entities and what entities are.

If, on the other hand, the book were supposed to be more advanced and dealt with topics like, "How to navigate hot-button topics in the workplace" or if the example really wanted to model how one might design a database that served the purpose of categorizing war criminals, I would be okay with it. As it is, I just think it's a garbage example.

I do, however, think the author has a point about how much we gloss over sublimated political and social speech. It's true. We do that. And we often accidentally espouse the status quo by trying to be neutral. That is a legitimate problem not only in technology but also in journalism and in every endeavor that involves written language.

From that point of view, I applaud the author for trying something different. And I can certainly understand the need to try something different when you've been doing basically the same thing for 10 years.

That's my general response to this. My specific response to it is that teachers--in whatever format: book, in-person, classroom--have an obligation to only teach. Never to preach. People can go to churches for that if they want. But if I'm teaching you, my mandate is to lead you. To point you in a direction that will enable you to increase your knowledge. I struggle with this quite a lot as a violin teacher of young children.

Classical music and its history and theory are full of politically and morally charged ideas. It's not all about how to get the fingers of your left hand to fall into a certain configuration in a certain time constraint. Or about how to put your bow in exactly the right place with regard to a vibrating string.

You have to manage your relationship with your audience. You have to understand why this music came to be, and yes, how things like religion were a factor. It's not simple.

But my job as a teacher isn't to tell my students that Mozart was a womanizing asshole, or to pass judgement on Tchaikovsky for being a closet homosexual who was very kind to his wife in spite of being very frustrated.

My job is to lead the student. To show them where facts can be discovered and ultimately to enable them to process those facts and draw their own conclusions. To give the student a framework for how to process facts, analyze them, and draw their own conclusions.

What I think about this author's approach is tied to my personal opinion of what we should be doing when we are in leadership positions. Saying that Kissinger is a war criminal doesn't inspire the kind of learning I think is appropriate. It's stated as a fact. It's the copy-paste mindset that is so detrimental to practically everyone. Memorize a fact. Repeat it. You need to learn how to do a thing on the web. Use jQuery. Repeat it.

I find this didactic method deeply and morally repellent, even though I agree with the politics espoused.

When we take up the mantle of a teacher or mentor or leader, we have an obligation to lead people down a path of growth. Not browbeat them with ideology. This approach smacks to me of someone who doesn't understand what teaching really means.

Finally, I would bet money that the author has a different attitude about things today, and that we shouldn't sit around crucifying someone for an experiment they did 17 years ago. It was mostly harmless. We all make mistakes when we are writing and teaching. I make mistakes as a teacher almost every day. Sometimes more than once.

It's a good topic for thought, and even though I think it was the wrong move, it makes me question and think about my methods and the ways I relate to people. So maybe it wasn't so far off the path of leading-not-preaching as I thought.

How much more common is this type of person nowadays?

Using a technical book to engage in hamfisted virtue signalling is such incredible cringe!