Deposing Dictators

[Stephen Horne]

On Wed, 01 Aug 2001 23:49:19 GMT, wtanksle at dolphin.openprojects.net
(William Tanksley) wrote:

>On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 00:32:56 +0100, Robin Becker wrote:
>>In article <mailman.996694328.7115.python-list at python.org>, Tim Peters
>><tim.one at home.com> writes
>
>>No matter who decided what it seems clear that the decision to go to /
>>as float had already been taken long before the flamefest took place.
>
>Pretty much.
>
>>That makes python's development somewhat less than democratic.
>
>Nope; it makes it *other* than democratic.  The way you go on one would
>think that was a bad thing; actually, it's not.

If there was an undeniably good reason for the change, I would agree
with this. As it stands, there are equally good - if not better -
reasons for keeping division as it is. At the end of the day, the
change is being done because of a religious viewpoint held by a vocal
part of the group that has a long history of rioting at the palace
gates. The decision isn't being made by logic or by popularity - it's
being made because the DFL has been hearing the protestors shouting
for too long while the happy and indifferent users have just got on
with using Python. He is a new-born
division-must-be-done-this-way-ist.

If you post on a single part of the issue, you get countered with an
argument that is so weak it's unbelievable. Counter back, and you get
told 'oh no, we've heard that one before' - as if that somehow makes
it wrong. But of course you hear the same pro-PEP views over and over
again and that's allowed - no matter how strong the argument against
those views. Actually compile all the main issues into a single post
so that people would actually have to think to counter it, and all
they do is ignore it.

Of course I've been shown to be wrong on a couple of things - on a
blatantly religious issue I'd be surprised if I wasn't. The bulk of my
argument is all in one place, however, in a thread titled 'Steve
Summary of views on the Is-It-Actually-Better?' - it has been there
since the 24th of July, with a minor update on the 25th - and not one
person has posted a counter argument to that.

The pro-PEP faction *IS* a religious faction just the same as the
anti-PEP faction. There is no overwhelming argument to prove the
pro-PEP case - only an overwhelming faith that the pro-PEP arguments
are good and the anti-PEP arguments should be stamped down or ignored.
And I'll admit that the anti-PEP faction is just as bad - the claims
about 'MDFL' and such show that.

The only significant difference between the factions is that the
anti-PEP people don't want to drag everyone through years of
incompatibility problems just because they think their religious
viewpoint is the one and only 'ultimate' truth.

The pro-PEP people think that the anti-PEP viewpoint being weak, in
their opinion, is a proof of their arguments and their motivation. The
fact that their arguments are at least as weak is ignored. And the
number of times I've seen threads such as...

<pro-pep>  We have to make it easy on the newbies

<anti-pep>  Yes - ease the learning curve - but don't hide problems,
pretend there's nothing to learn, and cause newbies to save up bigger
problems for later - a comfort zone isn't a good thing

<pro-pep>  Stop blaming the newbies - it's not about newbies

...just bores me to tears.

>No.  We get to use the result of Guido's decision process.  We also get to
>provide him feedback for his decisions (if we want to).  At no point do we
>get to be part of the decision-making process.  This is just like real
>life -- if you want something done right, give ONE competant person the
>responsibility and authority to do it.

This is, of course, why dictatorship has always worked so well as a
form of government. Not.

>>At some point the DFL will make a decision that's wrong. I suppose the
>>herd will have another group hug and accept it.
>
>Guido's _already_ made a decision that's wrong -- he decided to make "/"
>have an ambiguous meaning.  He's now trying to fix his mistake.  Pretty
>cool, huh?  So, do you have a better solution than the one he's proposing?

It is not an ambiguous meaning, as has been stated over and over
again. But then the only opinions that still count if lots of people
state them over and over again are the pro-PEP ones of course.

Just once more, then...

There is a bit of meta-data implicit in the datatype. If you use
integers, you are asserting that you are working in the set of
integers. That means the only logical interpretation of the division
operator is integer division. And, as luck would have it, that is an
extremely useful interpretation because everyday non-specialist
programming tasks frequently require programmers to work in the set of
integers.

If you used mixed types with arithmetic operators, then - while it is
debatable whether the operations should be allowed at all - it is a
practical convenience to coerce to the more flexible type. That is not
the same as discarding the notion of type.

>If so, propose it here (and someone will hopefully make a PEP of it).  If
>not, let's talk about solutions.  But for goodness' sake, don't waste your
>time whining about "democracy".  Especially when "democracy" means
>"whiners have veto power over anything."

That is precisely what has happened with the pro-PEP view - the
whiners have kept on whining for so long that they finally got their
way and now a fundamental arithmetic operator is changing. *YOU* are
in with the whiners. *I* am simply not sitting down and taking it just
because the whiners will keep whining at me otherwise.

The following paragraph is not aimed at William Tanksley, which should
be obvious but the way people read things on this issue I'd just like
to make that explicit...

I'd like to point out that the large number of 'viruses' I've been
e-mailed over the last couple of weeks won't affect my viewpoint. I
thought this was an innocent case of other people being infected at
first, but it's rather strange that when I reply to these e-mails to
warn people that their machines have been infected the addresses
mysteriously don't exist and the messages consistently bounce.
Fortunately, I'm not stupid enough to run untrusted attachments (no,
not *even* when they have two extensions to try to fool stupid people
into thinking they are documents), and even if I was I always have
up-to-date backups. And yes, I do understand a little Spanish, so
could the person who sent that mail please reconsider who the 'pajero
retrasado' is. In my view, sending insulting messages to people who's
views you disagree with - along with being such a coward that you
write the message in a language you think the recipient won't
understand - is a pretty good description of what a retarded wanker
might do. Using an anonymous remailer just proves even more what a
pathetic coward you are.


If this PEP goes ahead, as every indication shows it always was going
to do, then, on the whole, it just means I won't trust Python to
remain stable any more. I've contributed to discussions aimed at
minimising the pain if it does go ahead, because I have an interest in
doing so - I've been an avid Python user for about 4 years now, and a
vocal advocate for 2 or 3 years as well so this change is going to
cause some problems for me as it will for many others. However, the
simple fact is that the Python dictatorship is a somewhat weak one,
compared with other dictatorships. We are all free to leave and go
elsewhere, and there's nothing the DFL can do about it. The only force
keeping us in the Python world is the value of the Python language
itself. If that value is going to be watered down with doubt and
mistrust over the stability of the central language features, I for
one will simply find other ways to handle my future coding needs.

I have a definite distaste with the idea of taking the Python source
and setting up incompatible versions, as others have suggested, but
the world is full of other choices. Python started as a result of
Guido being unhappy with ABC. There is no reason why those unhappy
with Python should not create another new, and perhaps - in time -
superior, language.

So rejoice - your faction has got its way with the division operator.
Why don't you go ahead and whine about case sensitivity, block
indenting, implicit referencing and every other feature of Python that
anyone ever accused of being a wart. I'm sure you'll eventually
convince Guido to change all these things and more. I no longer care.