[Python-Dev] Python ROCKS! Thanks guys! [anecdote]

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Thu Oct 13 00:31:32 EDT 2016


Thanks for passing this feedback along, Chris! It's always wonderful
to see developers feeling empowered by the potential that open source
tools offer them.

On 13 October 2016 at 11:01, Ryan Gonzalez <rymg19 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Poor students... ;)

Folks, as tempting as it may be to make jokes at the expense of other
programming languages, please try to ensure that references to them on
the core Python lists are formulated on the basis of "What can we
learn from their experiences?", rather than as generic putdowns of
entire software development ecosystems. Even as a lighthearted joke
(as here), it isn't helpful to the design process to categorise
programming languages as being generically "better" or "worse" than
each other, rather than seeing them as embodiments of different ways
of thinking about algorithmic problem solving.

In combination with the W3C HTML5 and CSS standardisation work, the
JavaScript community have put together a superb set of tools for
creating user interfaces that are independent of the backend API
server implementation language, as well as useful tools for remote
data access and data transformation pipelines. The fact that all this
work is being done in the open and made freely available as open
source software means that the Python community is able to benefit
from these capabilities as much as anyone.

Regards,
Nick.

P.S. If anyone would like more background on why the "Our language is
universally better than your language" approach can be problematic
(even in jest!), please take a look at Aurynn Shaw's piece on Contempt
Culture in programming communities and the barriers that can create to
effective collaboration: http://blog.aurynn.com/contempt-culture

There's also my own
http://www.curiousefficiency.org/posts/2015/10/languages-to-improve-your-python.html
which looks at some other ways in which dismissing ecosystems out of
hand can inhibit our ability to learn from both their mistakes and
their successes.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia


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