I am still flabbergasted by the solid resistance to promoting Python.
I think the posters have mostly promoted Python rationally, and not
promoted Python irrationally. Python is a good language, and Ruby is
not a bad one. From what posters say, it's possible I'll end up using
Ruby or Scheme in the future, especially if they're the better choice
for the task, though not exclusively.
It is sad that devotion is such a two-sided coin. If you devote your
time, memory, and attention to a principle or idea, you exclude
others. Rational devotion, though, unless a contradiction in terms,
is merely allocation.
Here of all places, NOT even one person(well Terry did kinda half
agree with me =), wants to support Python. I am completely perplexed.
I'm actually honored that the posters here reply to me sometimes. I'm
just in my 20s so I shouldn't expect them to really. But one thing
that comes with realism (as opposed to zealotry), is a solid
examination of one's leader's advice, the alternatives, and other
leaders' advice. And realism is good.
You OWE your
allegence to Python and the BDFL.
I don't see how this follows from any of your premises. Can you start
with concrete observations and draw the conclusion you want? I could
see that taking this as a premise, you could conclude that one is
devoted to Python and the BDFL. Your argument is:
M: X reads c-l-python.
C: X owes his allegiance to Python and the BDFL.
You haven't made any observations much stronger than the major
premise, M, and unless you're making stronger assumptions that it, you
can't deduce C. In the general case, I take the meaning of 'owe' to
participate in something like:
M: X has paid Z to Y, not free.
C: Y owes Z to X.
Python and Guido have not paid me allegiance. So I don't owe them
allegiance. If you intended to make an argument for follower-ship
('fellowship'?) and devotion, something like:
M: Python is good.
C: Yay for Python.
Then you haven't even proven your major premise.
Taking debt (what one owes) to also originate from a collective, i.e.
the community, we also have:
Lemma: The community has granted Z to Y, such that Z is good. ('The
shirt on your back', 'your life', e.g.)
Major: One can pay a community by paying a particular leader or emblem
with relation T to the community.
Minor: Y owes Z to the community.
Conclusion: Y can pay by paying the leader.
To conclude that '[the audience owes its] allegiance to Guido and
Python', assuming that 'a community paid Z to Y' and 'Y paid Z to the
community' are well-defined, you're missing:
1: Allegiance is good.
2: The community has given the audience good things.
3: Guido and Python have relation T to the community.
They are yet to be shown. My assumption has been that you're using
'owe' in the sense of honor, not vendetta, which I leave.
I think i know why nobody wants to get on-board. All the regulars
can't have a n00b come in here and propose a grand Idea. Does it
bother you that i am so ambitious, so FOR the advancement of Python!
I think Python's best interests are better served by a fair and steady
course, not impulse and hot decision.
like to see python in more applications? Why do you even use Python.
Do you feel you should give back or just take, take, take??? I have
shared my feelings, let's hear yours.
IIRC there have been some 'Why do you like Python?' threads every so
often on the newsgroup. Hard to search for.
To think...that I would preach freedom to the slaves and be lynched
for it...IS MADNESS!
Man is mad. No question. Preach on.
Not one vote for Python, not a care.
Ask in a new thread, 'What do you like about Python?'. My favorites
are functions' being first-class objects, and variable-length argument
lists. +1 for Python.
I think everyone here should look
deep within their self and realize the damage that has been done
today!
We can't. Man is mad. (See above.)
I hope Guido's eyes never see this thread, for he may lose all
hope in humanity.
Guido's just a man acting in what he perceives to be his own
interests. He wrote some of and conceived Python. I doubt this
thread would change many mens' opinions of humanity; optimism takes
years and decades to crush. It would not be clearly best to hide it
from his eyes, of course; it is not necessarily advisable to have hope
in humanity. Why Guido? Do you hope that Barack Obama's eyes never
see this thread? If only Guido because Python is his invention and
we're not devoted to it, he may be better off for it than the
alternatives, such as devotion. He can count on us to tell him what
his ideas are, not just praise them.
"I am not scared to go up against the status quo".
I am against the status quo. I think you'd write better programs
cheaper if you wrote them in Python, outside of high-performance
ones. I think programming languages are new, and everyone says a
different one is best, so decision-makers are holding off on getting
behind one, and will probably choose the "middle way" when they do.
Is Python in the middle way? Possibly not, if for example it's too
sharp and innovative.
Oh Python, where art thy faithful followers, thy house is crumbling,
thy last breath spent, thy season draweth nigh...Ye have fought
bravely for all that is good. But ye are encompassed on all sides by
evil. Those who proclaim to love you are only the very same who seek
your end!
Weep oh lovers of Python...Weep. For your silence brings about the
hideous end to a great awesome power. Never again shall the sun shine
on calm waters. Never again shall the people be free. For the
betrayers have thrush the knife of iniquity slowly into thou heart,
and as ye lay dying, desacrate your body like the scoundrels they
are.
Weep, Weep, for yourself you scondrels, you vipers...for you have done
a great injustice to yourself and the world.
Your poem doesn't contain much besides 'boo for evil' and 'down with
bad'. I agree, of course, but there is more to say, not merely more
ways to say the same. Do you think, that if a college philosophy club
looked over your recent posts, they would find that you have spoken
just of Python? Are your arguments cogent and correct? Are your
premises mutually consistent? Are they consistent with observation?
Do you maintain that it is possible to value Python, and not value
Ruby almost as much or more?
P.S. 'thrust', 'desecrate', and 'scoundrels'... unless they're the UK
spellings.
P.P.S. Anyone have a partial characterization of 'T' above, in: "...a
particular leader or emblem with relation T to the community."?
