[Chicago] The list

[Bob Haugen]

As a self-taught programmer, I think the Python community has a nice
balance of respect for the giants upon whose shoulders we ride and
welcome and help for the noob. *Both* are necessary for a good
software community.

Thank you all, forever.

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 8:48 AM, Jeremy McMillan
<jeremy.mcmillan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nice manifesto! I will only disagree about the missing attribution of the
> "premature optimization" quote, and the stuff that seems to draw us-vs-them
> distinctions between the Python community and Computer Scientists. I
> remember the "premature optimizations" thing being a Donald Knuth quote
> about the spring from which all of the worst kinds of bugs flow.
>
> I guess that means I also disagree with the "just my opinion" equivocation.
> I agree Rob, but I developed my sympathies from one of the seminally
> greatest computer scientists to ever speak or write about solving problems
> with computers. It takes big shoes to argue against a fundamental principle
> from someone with that level of insight and experience.
>
> Please disagree with me if you want, but I think a key part of the community
> is about gently putting down feelings of pride and it's uglier twin shame; I
> think we do great things with humility and determination. Go watch some of
> the videos of The Don doing his guest lectures at Stanford, listen for his
> humility and determination, and try to catch his dry humor.
>
> If Guido is the father of Python, Donald Knuth is a grandfather, and both
> have way more to teach than just syntax and algorithms. When you stand on
> the shoulders of giants, it's ironic and inappropriate to engage in self
> deprecation or to be self effacing.
>
> I was trying to think of ways that we could engage our community to promote
> the communitarian participatory science attitude at the existential core of
> groups like ChiPy. Maybe this list should be open to discussing bugs (errors
> or omissions) we find in others' code, and the best community response to
> fixing them, ergo getting the original problem solved in the most general
> way practical? Maybe mentors and mentees could make a special point to
> participate? Then we can have side adventures together, actively improving
> open source Python software?
>
> On Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 20:09 Rob Kapteyn <robkapteyn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I know what you are feeling -- code-shame and the impostor syndrome -- but
>> that is NOT how Python became the center of a strong and vibrant community.
>> [... Snip ...]
>> Sometimes, I knowingly write inefficient code -- think of to no-no of
>> "premature optimization" -- and smile ;)
>> That is closer to "the Python way" than this phony "idiomatic" fad that
>> seems to be hitting the Python world lately.
>>
>> Just my opinion ;)
>> Rob
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:42 PM, Mark Graves <mgraves87 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I echo all of the above sentiments and these are all things I'm
>>> interested in.
>>>
>>> I am personally here to learn from other's mistakes.  In my career (if
>>> you can call it that), its been less painful than re-creating them myself.
>>>
>>> I often code-shame myself and typically suffer from impostor syndrome
>>> especially when people talk about the zen of python.  This has led me to
>>> contribute less to the open source community than I would have liked because
>>> I'm afraid people will ridicule my code.  I have even gone so far as to
>>> create fake github/bitbucket accounts and send pull requests.  Yep.  I'm
>>> that wierd.
>
>
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