Need cleanup advice for multiline string

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:52:16 +0200, Stefan Behnel wrote:

> Simon Brunning wrote:
>> 2009/8/11 Robert Dailey:
>>> On Aug 11, 3:40 pm, Bearophile wrote:
>>>> There are gals too here.
>>> It's a figure of speech. And besides, why would I want programming
>>> advice from a woman? lol. Thanks for the help.
>> 
>> Give the attitudes still prevalent in our industry (cf
>> <http://tinyurl.com/c5nqju> and many more), I'm sorry to say that I
>> don't think this is funny.
> 
> Me neither.
> 
> I used to reply with comments like "you just missed more than half of
> the world's population" to people who started their postings with "hi
> guys!", 

If you start your post with "Hi guys", you've missed more than EIGHTY 
percent of the world's population, namely the 5.5 to 6 billion people who 
speak no English. To say nothing of the 99.9% of the world's population 
who couldn't help you with your query, even if they spoke English, and 
even if they were on the Internet.

In that case, missing out on the small percentage of English-speaking 
women who don't know that "guys" has become sexless probably doesn't 
matter.

(I'm amused and somewhat perplexed that somebody with the non-English 
name of Stefan, writing from a .de email address, seems to be assuming 
that (1) everybody is on the Internet, and (2) everybody on the Internet 
speaks English. Awareness of sexism is a good thing, but so is awareness 
of cultural chauvinism.)



> and I stopped doing that as a) it became too tiring, especially
> on a potentially-for-newbees group like c.l.py, and b) to many people it
> actually *is* a figure of speech.
> 
> But reading statements like the above really makes me feel that it's
> best to comment even on simple things like "hi guys!".

Or you could enter the 21 century and understand that "guys" has become a 
generic term for people of any sex.




-- 
Steven