holy wars
[from
USENET, but may predate it] n. {flame
war}s over
religious issues. The paper by Danny Cohen that
popularized the terms
big-endian and
little-endian in
connection with the LSB-first/MSB-first controversy was entitled
"On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace". Other perennial Holy
Wars have included
EMACS vs.
vi, my personal computer vs.
everyone else's personal computer,
{ITS} vs.
{UNIX},
{UNIX} vs.
VMS,
BSD UNIX vs.
USG UNIX,
C vs.
{Pascal},
C vs.
LISP, etc., ad nauseam. The
characteristic that distinguishes holy wars from normal
technical disputes is that in a holy wars most of the participants
spend their time trying to pass off personal value choices and
cultural attachments as objective technical evaluations. See also
theology.
