How to respond to trolling (Guido van Rossum)
I feel I have to respond to this one. More than half of what I suggested could have and should be implemented. In particular the truthiness of non-boolean data and the lack of a reasonable SQL syntax. Several other points have been discussed endlessly on the internet but without a satisfactory (IMO) answer being given. I don't know what is meant by some insults having been thrown in. Calling truthiness of non boolean data "Ugly" is an insult? It is ugly. Yes, I should have double checked the chained assignment before posting and perhaps including some things which weren't changing added negative value. Regarding this comment. 'I use vim, which is very respectable, thank you. You'd like me to use "EditPlus 2" or equivalent', I think you should familiarise yourself with the "map!" function in vi and vim - put it in your .exrc file or .vimrc (vim only). e.g. "map! if if ^M ^Mendif". Regarding the with function, to those not familiar with what I was referring to that is a construct in Delphi and some other languages which works like this: ReallyLongFileDescriptor=open("file") with ReallyLongFileDescriptor: x=readline() // note the lack of "ReallyLongFileDescriptor." print x Delphi is even worse in that you can add more than one prefix in your with statement. Yes, you can put #endif at the end of every "if" statement etc. That requires a checker in the vein of the ccheck of yore to be enforced. These things aren't desirable.
Hello Simon, I'm mostly lurking this mailing list and this is my first post, so hello everybody 🙌. On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 12:13:03PM +0800, Simon Lovell wrote:
I feel I have to respond to this one.
This discussion hasn't much to do on this mailing list and it's only generating noise. Please, would be kind enough to keep discussing this on python-list (aka comp.lang.python) where it belongs? And eventually, once discussion settles on realistic changes that /can/ be added to python you might want to submit a PEP: http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0001/ To quote the above linked document, I believe this applies to your situation:
And read 5 times the following part before posting here again:
Just because an idea sounds good to the author does not mean it will work for most people in most areas where Python is used.
Even though I can only believe this is not your intent, in the end it looks pretty clear that many people, including myself, are being annoyed by these threads making the signal/noise ratio of this list very low. As I've read the original mail I knew it would end up in a low signal/noise ratio discussion because even I wanted to lecture you, Simon, about languages, grammar and compilers. Instead I killed the original thread (plonk!), as I find little interest in this discussion, but it keeps on respawning as some posters are breaking the threads. So please, be kind and have some netiquette. 🙏 Thank you, -- Bernard `Guyzmo` Pratz
On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 at 20:56 Simon Lovell <simon58500@bigpond.com> wrote:
I feel I have to respond to this one.
And as list admin I feel I now have to reply to this to help explain why people reacted the way they have.
More than half of what I suggested could have and should be implemented.
It's this sort of attitude which puts people off. It is your *opinion* that it should be implemented, not a matter of fact as you have stated it. Just because something could be done doesn't mean it should be done. You're allowed to have your opinion, but stating it as anything but your opinion does not engender anyone to your opinion.
I disagree, but that's fine since, as you said, that's your opinion and you're allowed to not like the decisions we have made in designing Python.
I don't know what is meant by some insults having been thrown in. Calling truthiness of non boolean data "Ugly" is an insult? It is ugly.
Now *that *is insulting to me. Once again, you are allowed to disagree and say you don't like how truthiness is handled in Python, but you flat-out stating something is ugly insults all the time and effort that me and the other core developers have put into Python to try and make it the best language we can with the constraints we have to work within. Put another way, would you find it reasonable to walk up to me at a conference and just say straight to my face "the way truthiness is implemented is ugly"? Or would you more likely come up to me and say "I don't happen to like how truthiness is implemented, could we have a chat as to why it is the way it is so I can understand how it came to be this way?" Notice how the former puts you on offensive footing like you're lecturing me while the latter is you asking a question to try and understand why something is the way it is that you happen to not like. One approach is respectful of the volunteer effort me and everyone else puts into Python, the other is not. This list exists to be open to people's ideas, but those ideas must be communicated in a considerate, respectful manner or else they will be ignored (and those three tenants are directly from the Code of Conduct). So I am politely asking you -- and reminding everyone else -- to simply be respectful and considerate of everyone here who is trying to have an open conversation. My rule of thumb is to talk as if you're asking a complete stranger to do you a favour (which you in fact are since you're asking strangers to read your email and to take its contents seriously). If we all did that then we wouldn't have issues here with how people communicate.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2017, at 17:39, Brett Cannon wrote:
Just out of curiosity... in your estimation, what is a "wart", and why is the term "wart" used for it? I mean, this is an accepted term that the Python community uses to refer to things, that is not generally regarded to be cause for an accusation of personally insulting anyone, right? I haven't stepped into an alternate universe? The only thing that "python features regarded as 'warts'" and "the skin condition called 'warts'" have in common, to connect them to even allow such an analogy to form, is that they are both regarded as negative to a commonly held sense of aesthetics - or, in a word, that they are 'ugly'.
On 01/12/2017 03:21 PM, Random832 wrote:
I do not see any difference between calling something a "wart" and calling something "ugly". The sticking point in this case is highlighted by your statement, "an accepted term *by the Python community*" [emphasis added]. In other words, it is equally offensive for a stranger to come in and start branding this or that as warts as it is for that same stranger to come in and start declaring this or that as ugly. -- ~Ethan~
On Thu, 12 Jan 2017 at 15:22 Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> wrote:
That term has been used since before I got involved in Python so I don't know its history. To me, a "wart" is a design misstep; there were reasons at the time for the design but it has not held up as necessarily the best decision. So to me "wart" is not as bad as "ugly" as it tacitly acknowledges circumstances were quite possibly different back then and 20/20 hindsight is not something we have when making a decision. As a community we have collectively agreed some things are warts in Python because enough people over time have shared the opinion that something was a design misstep.
You're focusing on the word and not how the word was presented. The fact that Simon started his email with a blanket statement basically saying his ideas were great and right automatically shows arrogance. And then continuing to say that something is ugly matter-of-factly just continued on that theme. I can normally mentally insert an "I think" phrase for people when they make a blanket statement like that when the rest of the email was reasonable, but the posturing of the email as a whole just didn't all for that. We can argue what adjective or noun could have been used forever, but the fact that it was delivered as if in judgment over those who put the time and effort to make the decision all those years ago doesn't ever feel good to the people being judged and ridiculed (and I know this can seem small, but as one of the people being judged regularly I can attest that the constant ridicule contributes to burnout).
AFAIK the term comes from a piece by Andrew Kuchling titled "Python warts". The topic now has its own wiki page: https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonWarts I believe that most of the warts are not even design missteps -- they are emergent misfeatures, meaning nobody could have predicted how things would work out. On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 5:09 PM, Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> wrote:
-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
Moreover, when I read "explicit self" is a wart, then I think, "you have absolutely no idea how fantastic 'explicit self' is". Thus, inferring from a single data-point these seems to be personal "dislike lists". In this regard, I tend to prefer Guido's one before any others if there is even one. On 13.01.2017 03:40, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
Hello Simon, I'm mostly lurking this mailing list and this is my first post, so hello everybody 🙌. On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 12:13:03PM +0800, Simon Lovell wrote:
I feel I have to respond to this one.
This discussion hasn't much to do on this mailing list and it's only generating noise. Please, would be kind enough to keep discussing this on python-list (aka comp.lang.python) where it belongs? And eventually, once discussion settles on realistic changes that /can/ be added to python you might want to submit a PEP: http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0001/ To quote the above linked document, I believe this applies to your situation:
And read 5 times the following part before posting here again:
Just because an idea sounds good to the author does not mean it will work for most people in most areas where Python is used.
Even though I can only believe this is not your intent, in the end it looks pretty clear that many people, including myself, are being annoyed by these threads making the signal/noise ratio of this list very low. As I've read the original mail I knew it would end up in a low signal/noise ratio discussion because even I wanted to lecture you, Simon, about languages, grammar and compilers. Instead I killed the original thread (plonk!), as I find little interest in this discussion, but it keeps on respawning as some posters are breaking the threads. So please, be kind and have some netiquette. 🙏 Thank you, -- Bernard `Guyzmo` Pratz
On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 at 20:56 Simon Lovell <simon58500@bigpond.com> wrote:
I feel I have to respond to this one.
And as list admin I feel I now have to reply to this to help explain why people reacted the way they have.
More than half of what I suggested could have and should be implemented.
It's this sort of attitude which puts people off. It is your *opinion* that it should be implemented, not a matter of fact as you have stated it. Just because something could be done doesn't mean it should be done. You're allowed to have your opinion, but stating it as anything but your opinion does not engender anyone to your opinion.
I disagree, but that's fine since, as you said, that's your opinion and you're allowed to not like the decisions we have made in designing Python.
I don't know what is meant by some insults having been thrown in. Calling truthiness of non boolean data "Ugly" is an insult? It is ugly.
Now *that *is insulting to me. Once again, you are allowed to disagree and say you don't like how truthiness is handled in Python, but you flat-out stating something is ugly insults all the time and effort that me and the other core developers have put into Python to try and make it the best language we can with the constraints we have to work within. Put another way, would you find it reasonable to walk up to me at a conference and just say straight to my face "the way truthiness is implemented is ugly"? Or would you more likely come up to me and say "I don't happen to like how truthiness is implemented, could we have a chat as to why it is the way it is so I can understand how it came to be this way?" Notice how the former puts you on offensive footing like you're lecturing me while the latter is you asking a question to try and understand why something is the way it is that you happen to not like. One approach is respectful of the volunteer effort me and everyone else puts into Python, the other is not. This list exists to be open to people's ideas, but those ideas must be communicated in a considerate, respectful manner or else they will be ignored (and those three tenants are directly from the Code of Conduct). So I am politely asking you -- and reminding everyone else -- to simply be respectful and considerate of everyone here who is trying to have an open conversation. My rule of thumb is to talk as if you're asking a complete stranger to do you a favour (which you in fact are since you're asking strangers to read your email and to take its contents seriously). If we all did that then we wouldn't have issues here with how people communicate.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2017, at 17:39, Brett Cannon wrote:
Just out of curiosity... in your estimation, what is a "wart", and why is the term "wart" used for it? I mean, this is an accepted term that the Python community uses to refer to things, that is not generally regarded to be cause for an accusation of personally insulting anyone, right? I haven't stepped into an alternate universe? The only thing that "python features regarded as 'warts'" and "the skin condition called 'warts'" have in common, to connect them to even allow such an analogy to form, is that they are both regarded as negative to a commonly held sense of aesthetics - or, in a word, that they are 'ugly'.
On 01/12/2017 03:21 PM, Random832 wrote:
I do not see any difference between calling something a "wart" and calling something "ugly". The sticking point in this case is highlighted by your statement, "an accepted term *by the Python community*" [emphasis added]. In other words, it is equally offensive for a stranger to come in and start branding this or that as warts as it is for that same stranger to come in and start declaring this or that as ugly. -- ~Ethan~
On Thu, 12 Jan 2017 at 15:22 Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> wrote:
That term has been used since before I got involved in Python so I don't know its history. To me, a "wart" is a design misstep; there were reasons at the time for the design but it has not held up as necessarily the best decision. So to me "wart" is not as bad as "ugly" as it tacitly acknowledges circumstances were quite possibly different back then and 20/20 hindsight is not something we have when making a decision. As a community we have collectively agreed some things are warts in Python because enough people over time have shared the opinion that something was a design misstep.
You're focusing on the word and not how the word was presented. The fact that Simon started his email with a blanket statement basically saying his ideas were great and right automatically shows arrogance. And then continuing to say that something is ugly matter-of-factly just continued on that theme. I can normally mentally insert an "I think" phrase for people when they make a blanket statement like that when the rest of the email was reasonable, but the posturing of the email as a whole just didn't all for that. We can argue what adjective or noun could have been used forever, but the fact that it was delivered as if in judgment over those who put the time and effort to make the decision all those years ago doesn't ever feel good to the people being judged and ridiculed (and I know this can seem small, but as one of the people being judged regularly I can attest that the constant ridicule contributes to burnout).
AFAIK the term comes from a piece by Andrew Kuchling titled "Python warts". The topic now has its own wiki page: https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonWarts I believe that most of the warts are not even design missteps -- they are emergent misfeatures, meaning nobody could have predicted how things would work out. On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 5:09 PM, Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> wrote:
-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
Moreover, when I read "explicit self" is a wart, then I think, "you have absolutely no idea how fantastic 'explicit self' is". Thus, inferring from a single data-point these seems to be personal "dislike lists". In this regard, I tend to prefer Guido's one before any others if there is even one. On 13.01.2017 03:40, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
participants (8)
-
Brett Cannon -
Ethan Furman -
Guido van Rossum -
Guyzmo -
Random832 -
Simon Lovell -
Stephen J. Turnbull -
Sven R. Kunze