[Mailman-Developers] Here's a little issue with the news gatewaying: If the n

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "TW" == Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net> writes:

    TW> 'Anal' is the right word! I transgressed once, I'll be sure to
    TW> never do it again :)

<whip cracking sound emanates from Thomas's speakers>

    >> JRA> Any internals doco written yet?  Is their a second tier of
    >> JRA> hackers following the list?

    >> Thomas? :)

    TW> I guess I count as a second tier :)
    
Yeah, but it'll only take you a couple of days to reach the top tier
and pass us all, if you haven't already.  (Bloating Thomas's head so
he'll take on the rewrite of the archiver, heh, heh. :)

    TW> I might just be used to his (possibly adopted) code style :)

All (good) Python coding styles derive from Guido's, naturally, and
the beautify of Python is that there isn't a /whole/ lot of room for
deviation (of any consequence).

<tangent>
Does this stiffle creativity in Python programmers?  Absolutely not,
IMO.  What it does is enforce a structure so that the creativity
blossoms in the important dimensions.  I used to maintain the C++
editing mode for Emacs, and the depths of, er, creativity in coding
styles there was obnoxious.  Guido recognized that code is read orders
of magnitude more often than it is written, and Python encourages a
community standard so that almost everyone can read almost everyone
else's code.  It's a wonderful breath of fresh air because Python
becomes like a hammer in your hands -- almost invisible, an extension
of your body.  The tool disappears and you are left with just the task
at hand.
</tangent>

Still, I have my own minor deviations from Guido's style, and I think
it's important to maintain consistency within a module, and within an
application.  That's why != is better than <> in the standard library,
but not in Mailman code. :)

[Aside: A fun thing to do for IPC 10 would be to grab representative
code samples from a wide range of prolific Python program and ask
Guido to "name that hacker".  He'd have no problem with mine, I'm
__sure. :) ]

    TW> [ Apologies for the off-topicness, but Python can't be
    TW> *totally* off topic, not on this mailinglist, can it ? :) ]

Naw, plus it's fun to talk about our passions, and Python definitely
is one of mine (it better be or I guess I'd have to start looking for
a new job).  Plus, I suspect there's a lot of folks on this list that
aren't (yet :) Python programmers, so explaining why we love it can't
hurt.

    TW> It might reflect a bit of C style because Barry does a fair
    TW> bit of C coding

And in former lives, such dinosauric languages as C++, ObjC, FORTH,
Perl, Tcl, Smalltalk, assembly, SNOBOL, Pascal, PL1, BASIC, FORTRAN,
blah, blah, blah. :)
    
    TW> but Barry also used to do a lot of Java coding (or pretend to,
    TW> anyway, on JPython :)

Funny guy, that Thomas.
    
    TW> so I'm not sure if that's true. Python isn't like Perl, you
    TW> can't write it in *that* many different ways :)

    TW> Usually just in one, even. Even pipermail is fairly standard
    TW> python code, if you refactor some of the functions and fix the
    TW> whitespace usage.

Ah ha!  Now you've done it.  This is a clear offer from you to rewrite
Pipermail.  Nope, you can't back out now.  We all heard it.

:)

i'll-even-give-you-a-week-ly y'rs,
-Barry