[Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL

[Arthur]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: edu-sig-bounces+ajsiegel=optonline.net at python.org [mailto:edu-sig-
> To: 'David Handy'; 'Guido van Rossum'
> Cc: edu-sig at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] Microsoft's KPL
> 
> A company like Microsoft would be ashamed - based on more traditional
> notions - of publicly promoting a position that the realization of the
> potential of our children is part of their mission. 

I think I understated my position, a bit - in an effort to sound
"reasonable".

One should not expect a large corporation to have an emotion like "shame" -
that's clearly a form a anthropomorphism.

One should expect such an enterprise to act in a strategically sound manner.
And one might expect that it would be strategically unsound for an
organization like Microsoft or Disney or IBM or etc, and etc. to attempt to
promote themselves as having an altruistically based concern about
"learning" and "education".  Because it might well look ridiculous - and as
the movie producer in The Godfather says - "a man in my position can not
afford to be made to look ridiculous".

One would expect the most potent fire to come from the educational
community, the academic community.  

But groundwork has been laid.

It seems to me that the Microsofts and Disneys and etc. and etc. go forward
on these issues with some confidence that the fire coming from those
communities will be muted = at best. By understanding the current dynamics -
and survival modes - in those communities.

Yuck - its ugly.

Art