If you want X, you know where to find it (was Re: do...until wisdom needed...)

[Bjorn Pettersen]

Could you guys take this to private email? This currently has nothing to do
with Python.

Thanks.
Bjorn

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Martelli [mailto:aleaxit at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 5:03 PM
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: Re: If you want X, you know where to find it (was Re:
do...until wisdom needed...)


"Douglas Alan" <nessus at mit.edu> wrote in message
news:lcpue9j41b.fsf at gaffa.mit.edu...
    [snip]
> You know, Mr. Martelli, I'm not 'tupid.  It was an *illustrative*
> example, not a reference manual.  For the purposes of illustration,
> the code I presented was fine.  I know perfectly well how to write
> robust macros, having written many of them in days gone by.  And you
> know what?  They worked and were bug-free.

You have written robust macros in Python?  Peculiar.  The time
machine must be malfunctioning... you _sure_ you didn't use instead
a language whose first and foremost design choice was to use a form
for its programs that is easy to process by program, rather than one
that's easy for humans to read and write?

try/except/else is of course no rocket science compared to the
High Surgery you will be proposing in your PEP, no doubt.  But
care about little things (such as spelling, or correct usage of a
programming language even in illustrative examples) may be a
good indicator of a person's mindset and attitude.


> All you're convincing me of is that you are an asshole who is more
> concerned with trying to humilliate other people than trying to have
> any sort of intelligent conversation.

As a tiny amount of searching would easily reveal to anybody
with a modicum of net-tools savvy, I have a long history of
being interested in _both_ flamewars _and_ constructive
exchanges.  If I had my choice each and every time, I would
take the latter, but of course I don't get my choice -- when
my counterpart brings nothing to the table above the level
of your above quote (what lack of finesse -- you DO appear
just as inept at flamewars as at try/except/else usage -- if
you're just making believe, you're one of the best method
actors I've ever had the pleasure of spectating!), then it's
flametime.

> Never mind that I have spoken
> in public, giving free Python tutorials and that I have relentlessly
> evangelized Python as far and wide as I have been able to.  I've put

Right -- nor would I care much more if you fed starving orphans,
worked relentlessly for peace and understanding in Rwanda, or
had a Nobel prize in Literature, _in the present context_.  "Hate
the sin, love the sinner", and all that.  What you are advocating
here in the last few days is not "Python", but, rather, declaration
of variables, infinitely extensible syntax (and, I gather from the
grapevine, only single-inheritance rather than multiple, and no
spaces for indentation -- not sure how many other brilliant ideas
you've still spared us for the moment).

If this is the "python" you're relentlessly evangelizing, then my
interest in your evangelization activities is a _negative_ one.

> my time and effort where my mouth is.  Because I have a somewhat
> different slant on things than you do, you would try to make me feel
> that I'm not part of the Python community.

Cognitive-behavior terapy is something I've already mentioned in
connection to your posts, but it looks like the mention didn't get
through.  "Make me feel", hm?  The only element of a typical
diagnosis I haven't yet noticed in your post is 'must'/'have to'.

> In doing so, you do
> nothing more than alienate someone who is *very* passionate about
> programming languages, programming language design, and Python in
> particular.

Our passion level on such themes is then probably on a par.  A key
difference would seem to be that I would never try to *pervert* a
programming language by totally ignoring its fundamentals, while
you appear to be one of the kind of people who love to _grasp_
beautiful things for the specific purpose of sullying their purity.

Do you hang around Haskell lists whining that Haskell would be
just great if it just switched over to eager evaluation, mutability,
and no type-correctness?  Around XML ones claiming you are
passionately in love with XML but would want to see it drop the
requisite of all tags needing to be closed and nest properly?
(Etc) -- or is Python the only language lucky enough to get the
unmeasurable benefits of your boundless wisdom...?


> Why don't you tell your theory that anyone who thinks an extensible
> syntax might be a useful feature doesn't understand the
> "wellenbrofferpoftenbuft" of Python to Guido, since I saw him muse in

Uh, do I notice a strong hostility towards the German language in
this pseudo-quote?  If you're unable or unwilling to learn German
this is no cause for anger and hostility (as I suspect any cognitive
behavior therapist would have no trouble telling you) -- just don't
go around claiming "you love it but they must drop the cases and
genders and the agglutination to make you happy"... it's easy.
"World-view" will serve as well if the usual technical term irks
you so, you know.

> this very newsgroup several years ago on how an extensible syntax
> might be a nice feature .  I take it from what you say that Guido
> doesn't understand the "wellnenstoflebuft" of Python either.

You know, the "print>>flop" fiasco _did_ make me suspect that
at one point:-).  But then I rationalized that one disaster per
ten years is still a very good batting average -- far better than
any I can claim.  As for musings, they're innocuous enough
until and unless they become substance.


> You are not a good force for the Python community, Mr. Martelli.  You

Darn, foiled again -- Sherlock Alan has realized I am but an
agent of the space-eating mutant viruses.  Oh well, fortunately
I managed to fool many others into believing I was helping
them, so our nefarious purposes are still well-served...

> are an antagonistic fool.  Your hypothetical army of monkeys sitting
> at typewriters would better serve the community.

*MINE*?  _BLUSH_.  You know, Mr Alan, I _have_ received many
interesting compliments on the net, but, so far, none as high as
somebody mistaking me for Emile Borel (surely, in your wisdom,
you DO know HE is the originator of this metaphor, right?).  It's
true that my published results in the fundaments of contract
bridge _have_ been described as "takes a giant step (some
would say it goes even further)", but that was just an old and
cranky editor forgetting for an instant to be cranky and old
and letting enthusiasm fire him up -- they still don't really
compare to his "Theorie Mathematique du Bridge" (I _have_
seen further, yes, but I _was_ standing on his shoulders, just
60 years later -- and a greater giant than Borel is pretty hard
to find all over the 20th century's horizon!-).  Besides, his 'Theorie'
was _much_ later than his invention of the "million de singes"
in "Mécanique Statistique et Irréversibilité".  [Not to mention
the silly think-o I made in my variance estimator -- turns out
my results are at least an order of magnitude more precise than
I had "measured"!-) -- read all about it in a forthcoming issue
of "American Statistician", where Dr Shuster will carefully
delineate my elementary error... Borel didn't _DO_ those!-)].

Nope, sorry to disappoint -- as a statistician I'm really a
dilettante, and I'm definitely _not_ Emile Borel.  Can't even
be his reincarnation (unless the time machine got into it),
as he died after my birth...


Alex



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