On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 7:59 AM Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
Off-topic:
I'm consistently and frequently frustrated by the community's use of PEP id numbers as jargon. I consider it to be a classic example of the use of jargon to exclude, rather than the sense of using it to streamline communication.
You're fighting something way WAY larger than Python, namely the use of technical spec references to represent what they're talking about. Off the top of my head: * Wireless speeds described as G, N, AC, etc, eg advertising a "Wireless AC" router * Advertising internet connection features such as "Annex M" * Defining file/message formats by RFCs (even superseded ones) * Citing XKCD numbers, most notably 936 but also others * Demanding your rights under the Nth Amendment (of the US Constitution but nobody ever even says that part) * Describing a type of scam by the section of Nigerian law that makes it illegal Yes, the numbers don't mean anything on their own. But they are VERY easy to look up (mostly - sometimes you need to know the context, like that wireless standards are all "802.11<letter>"), so they *do* streamline communication. In some contexts, using one of these kinds of references automatically creates a hyperlink to the document itself. That does help to make the jargon more accessible. I don't know if it's possible/practical to do that on mailing lists, though. ChrisA