Python is better than free (was Re: GNU wars again)

[Joshua Macy]

Paul Boddie wrote:

> 
> Who are these Strunk and White people anyway? (Serious question - I
> assume it's an American English style manual people keep referring to,
> or something, but I can't be bothered to search for it.) They must be
> rich by now, though. ;-)

  Strunk & White are William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, authors of The 
Elements of Style, which is pretty much *the* American English style 
manual...all the books you've ever seen called The Elements of ____ 
Style (e.g. The Elements of Programming Style by Kernighan and Plauger) 
are patterned after it.  E.B. White was a famous essayist (writing for 
the New Yorker for many years) and author of Charlotte's Web; William 
Strunk, Jr. was a college English professor of his. The Elements of 
Style started as a textbook written and privately printed by Strunk, and 
was revised by White.  It's a slim volume, weighing in at 85 pages, and 
is almost Pythonic in its pithiness.

   Joshua