What has PEP 285 done to us?

[Boris Borcic]

Laura Creighton wrote:

>>In article <3CB2CB16.8080103 at geneva-link.ch>, Boris Borcic wrote:
>>[snip]
>>
>>>(b) Laura made a lengthy point, overlooking the improvable while clear 
>>>to the language designer's POV, that it very much boiled down to : "I've 
>>>stacked my didactics of truth values in Python on the name of None, and 
>>>the PEP makes me feel I've been telling lies".
>>>
>>That's not how I saw it. The main point I extracted was: Until now,
>>the Pythonic "truth values" have been "something" and "nothing" (i.e.
>>the empty list, zero, None, etc.) With the bool type this is still
>>true, but we get a type which will give newbies the impression that it
>>isn't.


Well, cut "very much boiled down to" and paste "canonically equivalent 
over the right background".


> Magnus understood me very well.  I only want to add is that the 
> something-nothing is the real empirical truth of Nature, and all rest
> is formalism.


Don't take me too seriously above. You know what you have written, and 
so does everybody who read you.

I disagree with the letter of your addition, while I understand what you 
mean in context. The nothing/something matter has lots of aesthetics in 
it, and it is (was if you want) one of the subtle small beauties of 
Python. Python is like that. This is not an effect of God's will, but of 
Guido's instincts.

"Something-nothing is the real empirical truth of Nature" : with this 
I'd say again that you have something of a point but litteraly speaking 
saying what you say implies that we'd have a (adequate, consensual) 
understanding of the position of the *linguistic* zero. Which IMO - and 
globally speaking - is very far to be the case.

My point here is a bit diluted : an elegant way to put it, is that I 
think you are wrong if you think of language and minds as something 
outside Nature. To be exact, I don't think you do, but I do think your 
statement is given to be read to imply "Nature is outside language" and 
(by way of consequence) "there's no language in Nature".


> and to reject empty formalism (learning when formalism is empty and when 
> it is worthwhile is exactly what I am teaching and this is hard, hard,
> hard, hard, hard) then your job just got harder. 


Hmm. A bit flippantly, I'd be tempted to say that *of course* teaching 
something impossible to know is difficult to do. But the bit of truth in 
it wouldn't shine.

The real distinction is not between "knowing when formalism is empty" 
and "when it is worthwhile" but between "knowing why" you express 
yourself in such and such a precise way, and "not knowing why". Then is 
the question of "why might one fail to see the difference(s)".

> 
> In contrast --
> 
> Boris' phrasing indicates that I was 'trying to make a point' as if
> this was some sort of ego-driven competition between myself and Guido


Not at all my intention.


> with some sort of pay-off in terms of whether the PEP passes, or
> whether more big names on comp.lang.python come out in favour of me


Neither.


> than Guido or some other piece of nonsense.  I did not want this.


Acknowledged.


> Boris has revealed a flaw in our process, because that he took it that
> way means that the PEP process is being perceived as an ego-game.


Sorry, but I can't second your diagnostic here.


> 
> This _really_ stinks, people.

> I trusted Guido to be able to take off his
> 'I am an implementor and I just implemented a cool new feature' hat
> and put on his 'I am a langauge designer, and I am now looking at the
> language implications' hat.


In my view, you belittled the parallax between your POV as a teacher and 
Guido's POV as both large-scale coder and designer. To me it's more like 
"but given how much in the past I've demonstrated my attention to 
long-term language implications, and general conservativeness, can't you 
people give me some credit that I've pondered them to decisive details,
or do I have to face the perspective to remain bound not only to 
technical decisions but also to aesthetic decisions with little 
technical impact that I've made in the past and taken years to convince 
myself were OK to withdraw ?".

Guido is an conscientious artist, and it is a painful irony for a 
conscientious artist, to see a good art critic launch in passionate 
exegetics of the author's former aesthetic creativity at the instant he 
straws from a path of the type he'd up to then felt was his private 
business to pilot : the type of aesthetic choices.

> This trust we must have in Guido or else
> he will not be able to launch his own new features into Python.

> This
> is the faith we must have or else we think that we ONLY GOT LUCKY
> in that Python is great.


Right. 'xcept as a private matter and since you emphasize, LUCK
is not part of my primitive vocabulary.


> 
> Stop worshipping or demonising the man.  Only in bad American movies
> do the leaders of the military want blind discipline and worship.


Hmm. Should I read this as a comment on my

filter(lambda W : W not in "ILLITERATE","BULLSHIT") ?


> Leadership is hard, and way more fascinating and creative than that.


Au royaume des aveugles les borgnes sont rois.


> But this list is not the place to discuss this, either.


Who knows ?


> 
> Laura Creighton


You should read that I feel our particular attachment to Python (as 
compared to other people's) has similarities, despite my not aligning on 
your neatly motivated plea on PEP 285.

Regards, Boris Borcic
--
"Hope achieves the square root of the impossible"