Word to the wise: Okay, this isn't exactly the kind of thing I like to stick in this blog, but it pops up enough on the Net that it probably bears saying. One thing I've learned intellectually (and learned the hard way), even if I don't always put it into practice, is not to fan a flame [war]. It's usually best, as soon as you feel you've gotten a flameous reply, particularly in a public forum, to try and compliment the attack's author and gracefully bow out. Even if you're [Americans, say jokingly, please] conscious goal is to be The Alpha Male of All Males (and I haven't stumbled over a flame involving a woman iirc), your current flame war, no matter what it's about, is not that battle. ;^)

There's a pretty nasty flame war going on on the aspfriends.com lists right now (brought to me by, yes, you guessed it, The Digest Handler), and it's really pretty silly. It's just wasted bandwidth and time for the people interested in learning about .NET and asp.net. Strangely, the list owner is one of the combattants. It's really quite silly, and both fellows look pretty silly to me. "Chat with me." "I hate chat." "You're a stone." "No, you're a [contents deleted]." * Not quite actual quotes!

Agree to disagree. If you want to understand why someone is still thinking what they're thinking, ask questions. Don't explicitly defend your point of view. I think I've heard Ben Franklin was awfully good at that, not that that matters one iota. But for the most part, when communication becomes a pissing contest, stop trying b/c the communication stopped quite a while back. "It's not your fault." (ha)