[Python-ideas] string.format() default variable assignment
Steven D'Aprano
steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info
Sun Mar 3 05:33:22 EST 2013
On Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:00:13 -0500, Devin Jeanpierre wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 10:21 PM, Steven D'Aprano
> <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
>> How the flying fuck does my choice of where and how *I* read this forum
>> inconvenience YOU?
>>
>> Talk about an overactive sense of entitlement. The world does not
>> revolve around you and I do not arrange my day to suit your
>> preferences.
>
> I don't agree with what he said, but I think what he was getting at is
> that it's inconvenient to be polite to you according to the standards
> you have set.
Whether I read these messages via Usenet or email or a web-based archive
or by having a trained monkey forward the message to me in Morse code
makes *absolutely no difference* to the sender. All he need do is send to
the same list *he* reads the messages from, using whatever protocol he
chooses to use.
The very idea that my choice to read this in Pan newsreader rather than
some email client somehow inconveniences David Robinow is stupid.
Furthermore, he's picked out the *least* important part of my original
email to respond to. Even if I read this via email rather than news,
people emailing me directly rather than via the list may bypass any email
filters I may have set up. The use of news rather than email is merely
*equivalent* to a filter, where posts to this forum go into my news
reader instead of my email inbox.
And then there are people who go on No Mail and read responses via a web
archive, including the dreaded Google Groups. Or rather than receiving
individual messages, they go on digest mail. By emailing them directly,
you dis-empower them, taking away their choice of how they read messages
on that mailing list.
I'm sorry, but *your response is not that important* that you get to
thoughtlessly take away my choice of where and how I read messages.
(That's generic "you", not specifically you, Devin). That's a sign of
unreasonable sense of entitlement, conscious or not, and lack of
consideration for others.
I'm not being unreasonable here. Not withstanding the occasional person,
like Roy Smith, who considers it a good thing[1], if you reply directly
to the sender, in a small way you are taking away the sender's freedom of
choice. And that is rude.
[1] Perhaps Roy hasn't experienced really high volume threads, with
hundreds of messages a day, and getting two copies of every email in any
thread you replied to. I have.
--
Steven
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