I NEED to TEACH you something, QUICK!

[Cedric Adjih]

"Laura Creighton" <lac at cd.chalmers.se> wrote in message
news:mailman.991627986.11067.python-list at python.org...
>
> [...after some refactoring...]
>
> Note that sometimes when you try this, wonderful things happen:
>
> >War is bad.
>
> Huh?  That's the whole point.  That is exactly what Tolstoy was trying to
> say when he wrote that scene ...
>
> *****************
>
> Notice, again, how we have avoided spending all our time drowning in
> dog statistics that we really don't have any immediate need for.
>

This reminds me this chess anecdote after Tal-Botvinnik:
Tal: "After the game I demonstrated some very interesting (at least, I
thought they were interesting) variations. Mikhail Moiseyevitch, I think
only out of politeness, listened to me and then said: "This is all very
well, but - at first I was afraid of the piece sacrifice, but later I
decided that I should exchange the Rooks, keeping the Queens on the board."
I was surprised by these words. This assessment of the position seemed too
abstract. But when we began analysing the position, I realised that
Botvinnik was absolutely right. If I had exchanged the Queens, White's Pawns
would have been stronger than Black's Knight. Provided Black's Queen had
remained on the board, however, White's King would have been in real danger.
"Of course, such an abstract approach to evaluating chess positions should
not be regarded as a universal remedy; on the other had, in the course of
the game one should not rely only on calculation of concrete variations."

(BTW, chess books are full of "design" patterns)