On 10 January 2017 at 16:29, Guido van Rossum wrote:

I think a much more effective response would have been a resounding silence.

I agree. -- Ivan

If you're proposing throwing half of Python's current syntax in the bin, this isn't the right list either. If not marginally malicious, I think it's delusional to think a post to Language X's lists by someone who recommends multiple breaking changes would ever be accepted. The correct response (if any) would be to use another language or write your own transpiler that better agrees with your aesthetic. Nick

I don't like to use the term "trolling" except for people who are trying to

annoy people. I think the recent thread was misguided, but not malicious. I do agree that the thread should have ended at "unless you are seriously proposing a change to the language, this is not the right list."

--Ned

I think that replying with an almost canned response, like the one Ned proposed ("unless you are seriously proposing a change to the language, this is not the right list."), would help discourage other list members from responding where responses aren't necessary. -Ryan Birmingham On 10 January 2017 at 16:58, Guido van Rossum wrote:

Whether the intent was to annoy or just to provoke, the effect was dozens of messages with people falling over each other trying to engage the OP, who clearly was ignorant of most language design issues and uninterested in learning, and threw some insults in for good measure. The respondents should have known better.

-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)

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On 1/11/17, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 07:29:12AM -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:

...

Was it really necessary for all the usual folks on this list to engage with the "Python review" threads? I think a much more effective response would have been a resounding silence.

Giving a newcomer the Silent Treatment because they've questioned some undocumented set of features not open to change is not Open, Considerate or Respectful (the CoC). Even if their ideas are ignorant or ill-thought out, we must give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are making their comments in good faith rather than trolling.

I think that in this case: not all(people) == any(people) So in my humble opinion it is good to say something by some (which reflect CoC culture of python community) and be silent like zen master (and most people did it) by others :) BTW. This discussion could be inspiring and we could prepare PEP where we could give some hints how to do (stupid?) things in unified and clever way! ;) For example: 1. if you want to have endblocks then use "# endfor" instead of "# for" 2. if you want to replace "self" by one letters then use ᐠ (CANADIAN SYLLABICS FINAL GRAVE) see https://www.dcl.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/home/loewis/table-3131.html etc. Some editors could probably syntax highlight these constructs (and maybe hide dot too in case of replacing self :P) in future (at least in fancy mode :) ( Some of us could test idea through vi conceal feature for example to http://gnosis.cx/bin/.vim/after/syntax/python.vim insert something like syntax match pyNiceStatement "\

the effect was dozens of messages with people falling over each other trying to engage the OP,

Sure -- but all in one thread

The respondents should have known better.

But we like to kibitz-- that's why (many of us) are on this list. Anyway, all (most anyway) of the points brought up are : A) not going to change B) have been justified / explained in multiple blog posts, wiki pages, and what have you. So perhaps the best response would be: "These are all fairly core Python design decisions -- do some googling to find out why." But it made me think that it would be good to have a single place that addresses these kinds of thing to point people to. There was the old "python warts" page, but this would be a "python features page" Maybe I'll start that if I find the roundtoits. Or, if it already exists -- someone please point me to it. -CHB

On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Xavier Combelle wrote:

I did not read the thread, but it looks like the insult should be a red flag and a good time to stop immediately and baning the troll

Personally, when I read the original posting, there is quite a bit of it that comes across as arrogant and ignorant, but none that comes across as insulting. As such, I agree with some of the other replies to this thread: some reply was needed to the original thread. While the thread belonged on python-list, it was also not fully off-topic for python-ideas: while the wording was of a review of Python, and it was not worded as actually suggesting changes, it could be read as indirectly proposing changes or new features. As such, I feel that any reply to the thread should at least aim to point the poster to the correct forum (in this case, python-list), and it is not unreasonable to answer some of the points as though they are in fact suggesting changes - likely with links to the rational of the original decisions, or at least enough information for the original poster to fairly easily find such rationals themselves (eg a tutorial page or faq).