[Edu-sig] re: More spillover re the division PEP

[Arthur_Siegel@rsmi.com]

Kirby writes - 

>I think Arthur points too much emphasis on someone
>writing their own programs and following the unambiguous
>rules in the tutorial, vs. someone inheriting code written
>by others, and trying to puzzle out what's going on.

If we are disagreeing, I'm not sure where. 

I thought we were coming to similar places - just from
different angles.

Kirby also writes -

>In any case, these are all just hats.  I'm a newbie
>with respect to language A, casual user of B, non-user
>of C, pro with D.  Always a newbie, always a pro -
>that's life in the big city.

Here  we are disagreeing. I liked where you started
better - newbie in the sense of new to programming different from 
newbie in the sense of prior programming experience new to Python.

Quite different.
 
I attempt to add a third category. Scripter.

You seem to disagree with my assertion that we  need to be 
more explicit than "newbie" when discussing something like
the divisor operator.  Who stumbles, why, and what accommodation 
to their pre-existing expectations are possible or wise.  

I think it is impossible to speak productively of "newbies" as a 
group in having such a conversation - because all the conversation 
ends up being is about different peoples different definition of 
the word "newbie", caste as a discussion about something else.

ART