Since the original topic is likely dead (after having been derailed twice, and having relatively little content to begin with), I'll make a few "meta" comments.

Boy, this was a painful thread to participate in. Schmidt's interactions with si and Maven both got very personal very quickly. He managed to make everyone else (including me, a little) defensive after one reply each. Frankly Schmidt, you need to learn to play well with others. Having good ideas is not enough--having amazingly great ideas might be, but I haven't seen that from you so far. I'm reminded of an intern a friend of mine worked with. He had implemented some odd sorting algorithm, and during code review was told to change it to something standard. Instead, he wrote a proof of correctness of his original algorithm in the comments. Unsurprisingly, he was not hired after the internship. I don't know if the particulars of this example are applicable to you Schmidt, but the general idea certainly is: coding is about more than just telling a computer how to do things; having productive interactions with others is fundamentally important.

On the flip side, Maven and si could have done better to not let Schmidt get under their skin. Just focus on the content; if you start writing something that depends on your character/skills or the character/skills of the other person, you should probably just delete it and let it go. For instance, I had started to reply to Schmidt's "650" comment above, saying something to the effect of, "I can divide 130 ms by 199 µs, thank you very much," but am glad I didn't actually post it, since it's just not helpful. (I'm sorry it ended up in this post, though it's a good example.) (I understand si's role as a moderator is different from my role as a random forum user. si and Schmidt's exchange seems almost entirely unhelpful regardless.)

With all the bickering and nitpicking and talking past each other, this thread is *way* longer than it should have been, and I doubt it will help many people code anything better, if only because of the sheer amount of personal "spew" you have to wade through to get at the content.

Anywho, best of luck everyone; no hard feelings; have a good life if I don't see you again.