newbie question

T

Terry Reedy

Terry Reedy wrote:

In response to a claim (I presume by LG and snipped by LG) that Boo is as
related to Python as PyPy or Stackless, I wrote.

The 'this' that I referred to as silly was the equality part of the claim,
not that that Boo has *some* relation to Python. I tried to explain by
continuing ...
you're right, but what when I say "python related", I mean that it has
something or a lot in common with python,

I did not and do not dispute that Boo has some (lesser) degree of
relatedness. I continued by suggesting that it was about the same as for
Prothon. That there are differences in degree of relatedness was my point.

Nor did I or would I claim that the lesser degree of either is so low that
neither should ever mentioned here.

Terry J. Reedy
 
D

Doug Holton

Peter said:
I think doing this by defending Doug's postings, however, might weaken
the strength of your position just a little. (Okay, I mean "a lot".)

Flame away, Peter.
As a result of all the activity in the "Boo who?" thread, however,

that you started
I went and searched a bit to find out who this Doug character is.
It turns out that he's been mentioning Boo in postings *to newbies*
repeatedly over the last few months. These are people trying
to use Python, having a question or difficulty about it, and he
launches into a sales job about some other language.

Actually, it was only in the context of someone asking about a feature
python does not have (such as enums, or static typing declarationg, or
anonymous methods) and will likely not have for some time. I I have no
financial connection to boo or python. If you want to call me an
evangelist for boo, then you must also call me an evangelist for python,
as well as pretty much everyone here. In fact though, you only mean the
term "evangelist" as yet another disprectful flame.

If only I had taken the time to research your background before choosing
to take your posts seriously. Since you have spent such great effort in
misrepresenting my views and spreading your vitriol, here is some
background on you:
The very first hit for Peter Hansen:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group..._doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#4789c8134d78c77a
even recently:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group..._doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#75c05b3f81bb3a34
and of course the flame thread he started:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group..._doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#ab172cb34bdc0891
 
S

Stephen Waterbury

Luis said:
Amyway, I wouldn't want to use this list to talk about Boo, because I
think that the best place to do it is comp.lang.boo.
However, since I think it is definetely python related (I know you
disagree, but others don't) I see no harm in mentioning it here
occasionally.

Luis, that is *exactly* Peter's position:

Peter said:
... If Doug wants to come in from time to time and mention Boo,
however, he's welcome to do so. ...

.... so there is no need for you to say you see no harm in it,
making it sound as though Peter *does* see harm in it.

Steve
 
D

Doug Holton

Stephen said:
Luis, that is *exactly* Peter's position:




... so there is no need for you to say you see no harm in it,
making it sound as though Peter *does* see harm in it.

You can defend Peter all you want, but you can't take back the other
things he has said which you did not cite.

Quote:
"I think doing this by defending Doug's postings, however, might weaken
the strength of your position just a little. (Okay, I mean "a lot".) "

A flame.

Quote:
"About the only time the word "boo" _does_ come up, it comes up
in one of Doug's posts, often in an apparent attempt to "help"
a Python newbie by pointing him in a misleading manner"

A misrepresentation of my intentions. If someone asks if python has
interfaces, and I say first, pyprotocols has something similar, but boo
does have support for real interfaces, then that is "help" and that is
not misleading in the slightest.

Quote:
"As a result of all the activity in the "Boo who?" thread, however, "

He failed to mention that he is the one who started and propagated this
very thread, which devolved into nothing more than a flame-fest, which
was his intention all along.

Quote:
"I went and searched a bit to find out who this Doug character is. "

Another flame, and we are still in the same note by Peter Hansen, folks.

Quote:
"It turns out that he's been mentioning Boo in postings *to newbies*
repeatedly over the last few months."

*to newbies* - oh my god, dare I mention the word boo to a newbie.
Another mischaracterization of what I did.

Quote:
"These are people trying
to use Python, having a question or difficulty about it, and he
launches into a sales job about some other language. "

I am not selling anything. This is a subtle flame related to calling me
an "evangelist". Does Peter Hansen make money using python? Does he
have something to sell at engcorp that uses CPython?

Quote:
"Would you defend someone who came into this group and responded
(admittedly helpfully, sometimes, in other ways) to newbie
questions by constantly saying "you can do this much more easily
in Perl of course, see www.perl.codehaus.org"? "

Another complete mischaracterization of what I did. When someone asks
for something that they cannot do in python, then I noted alternative
solutions, such as jython or boo or whatever tool is best for the job.

Quote:
"Then downright offensive."

Another flame.

Quote:
"What Doug has been doing is like standing at the door of
a mission run by a church a..."

Yet again, another flame.

Quote:
"he turns on them and accuses them
of religious persecution, and being unfriendly to boot. "

Another mischaracterization. In fact, a complete lie.

I'm only halfway through his message. It would take me all day to point
out all his flames.
 
R

Reinhold Birkenfeld

Doug said:
Flame away, Peter.


that you started

Apart from that it is considered disrespectful to put your "opponent's"
name into the subject, this flame war is biting its tail already.

Reinhold
 
D

Doug Holton

Reinhold said:
Apart from that it is considered disrespectful to put your "opponent's"
name into the subject, this flame war is biting its tail already.

So putting "Boo Who?" in the subject is not disrespectful? You have
just proven my point that Peter Hansen created that thread for no
purpose but to troll and flame.
 
S

Steve Holden

Doug said:
So putting "Boo Who?" in the subject is not disrespectful? You have
just proven my point that Peter Hansen created that thread for no
purpose but to troll and flame.

Good grief, man, get a life. This is Usenet, not the United Nations.

it's-only-ones-and-zeroes-ly y'rs - steve
 
E

Ed Leafe

Apart from that it is considered disrespectful to put your "opponent's"
name into the subject, this flame war is biting its tail already.

You've missed the obvious: it's 'criticism' or 'observation' when it
comes from Doug, but it's a 'flame' when it is directed at Doug.

Unless there is something more substantial then whining, howzabout we
all just ignore it and let it die a quick death?

___/
/
__/
/
____/
Ed Leafe
http://leafe.com/
http://dabodev.com/
 
R

Richie Hindle

[Doug]
I'm only halfway through his message. It would take me all day to point
out all [Peter Hansen's] flames.

Doug, this is not worth your time. It certainly isn't worth mine, nor
that of the other thousands of people who are being subjected to this
argument. Please, consider putting your energies into something more
positive, either here or elsewhere.

Peter, Fredrik: Please consider giving up the argument. Hopefully Doug
will either lighten up and return to contributing usefully, or give up and
go away. (For what it's worth, I'd rather it was the former.)

the-last-haven-of-civilisation-on-the-net-is-under-threat-ly yrs,
 
D

Doug Holton

Steve said:
> 'Scuse me? This group has a long history of off-topic posting, and
> anyway who decided that CPython should be the exclusive focus? Even
> on-topic we can talk about Jython and PyPy as well as CPython.
>
> Off-topic we can talk about what we damned well please. Even boo :)

Thankyou, that's the most intelligent thing you've said all week.
 
D

Doug Holton

Ed said:
You've missed the obvious: it's 'criticism' or 'observation' when it
comes from Doug, but it's a 'flame' when it is directed at Doug.
>
Unless there is something more substantial then whining, howzabout
we all just ignore it and let it die a quick death?

It's amazing how many of you guys try this - spew some filth and then
beg people to stop the thread right now.

Speaking of Ed Leafe:
" You might want to check out Dabo, an application framework of which
I am one of the authors."

What are you selling?

"We offer one-on-one live phone, chat, or on-site support at an hourly
rate, with a minimum charge of one hour plus phone charges or travel
costs. Contact the authors (Ed Leafe and Paul McNett) for more information."
 
C

Charles Hixson

Terry said:
...



but I think this is silly. PyPy is an alternate implementation of Python,
not a different language. Stackless is a compiled extension, like many
others, that works with the standard implementation or maybe still a minor
modification thereof.
Where would you classify Pyrex?

Language boundaries are somewhat artificial, but Pyrex clearly doesn't
intend to be as similar to Python as PyPy does. Still, it's close
enough to almost be considered a language extension.

If one wanted to bother, one could probably construct a language
slightly more similar to Python than Pyrex, and another slightly less
similar. This couldn't continue forever, as the domain is discrete.
But it could go a long!! way. One could probably arrive at a graded
series of languages between Python and C (probably along several
different transformation vectors).

And slightly off to the side would be Python 2.5 and C2006 (or whatever
year the next version is defined). But some of the languages in the
series would be more similar to current Python than is Python 2.5.

So. A language is a series of specifications made at differnt times,
and has a fuzzy surround of implementations which nearly meet the
specifications. And this is true even where one of the implementations
itself is designated as the primary specification (because people will
argue that this feature or that is wrongly implemented).

Still, even given all that, Boo is clearly outside the area that is
Python. (One could have a "minimal acceptable distance" which could be
thought of as running correctly most of the programs that the core
language would run correctly.)
 
C

Charles Hixson

Grant said:
That seems to imply that you think market sucess == technical
merits. Unless you mean that Prothon was a technical failure
rather than a market-share failure...
As Prothon never got as far as an alpha stage product, I don't think you
could call it a technical success. It may well not have been a
technical failure, as it didn't get far enough to become one, but it
certainly was NOT a technical success.
 

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