Brandon's abrasive style (was Re: What's better about Ruby than Python?)

[Donn Cave]

"Troll" is really a function of the audience.  These guys will
exist, there is this way of viewing the world as a dramatic
contest between the armies of Python etc.:  You will lose, they
will eat your lunch, you're already dead and you don't know it,
bla bla.  But it takes an audience that finds this sort of thing
in the least compelling, usually young males it seems.

I don't actually see much of that in the responses, just picking
a few at random.  A discussion of language issues, like why Python
has no macros etc., not contentious though a bit boring because it
tends to be a rehash.  Other than people using the newsgroup to
complain about Brandon posts, Brandon's abrasive style doesn't
seem to have much effect.

If there's anything about c.l.p. that makes any of this disagreeable,
it's the implicit awareness that someone might actually add macros,
etc., to Python.  This means that you can't just let people blabber
on about it, stuff like that has to be nipped in the bud and all the
usual arguments have to be presented every damned time the subject
comes up.  Or next thing you know, Guido will conduct a poll:  should
there be macros.

	Donn Cave, donn at drizzle.com