Python IRC dictatorship

[Timothy Rue]

Python Dicktatorshit.

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«Topic» Topic for channel #python is Don't let the carrots fool you.  The time for action is... umm... sometime next week.
«Topic» Topic for channel #python has been set by ameoba on 20:22:29 22-11-2002
«Names» Users on #python: ThreeSeas Taranis_ dida cliechti_ red_one proteusguy jmones ivan foohbah jafo_ a3ws00 itamar gp sayke inapt tvon MisterP booyeah dash tsiar Kengur fog|zZzZ attila flippo_ kemu ameoba duplexer sulf TWD asqui jonI cliechti dan deus_x _AleX_ seme Crast r0kwork ry Netikular jor Tangent glyph d0rt r0ky_ joona alb Taranis- juri _jacob radix rc scn liiwi xeno42 colyte kittonian dunker z0mbie Thunder- exarkun af h3x deltab grib john zbir frangen
«Names» Users on #python: phed hhg Taaus ketaset paolo msm skylan noa_ jonez Yhg1s sjj plaisthos vegai steinn cmg eikeon teratorn Erwin[work] drewp Matt|| moshez Tmu Acapnotic wnp22 Sublime VladDrac sprocket_ mr_smith TenOfTen Fade psy gresco Setzer Lerris- snibril rik tig benz007 flippo Therion pyn skreech LordVan datazone zl0- tav|hiber _moshez Logan jamiebecker acct
«Names» End of /NAMES list.
«Time» anthony.freenode.net :Friday November 22 2002 -- 20:19:10 -06:00
-ChanServ- [#python] Welcome to #python, puny fleshlings. See the #python FAQ at http://www.purl.org/wiki/python/PythonFaq - see also http://python.org/ for docs and links. And remember: there is no PSU.
«Mode» Current modes for #python: no messaging
«Mode» Channel #python was created on 02:27:37 11-06-2002
ameoba JAVA!
sayke duct tape splint applied, and i can still sorta type slowly
dash ameoba: i'm crushing your head, i'm crushing your head
sayke without using tho two outside fingers on my left hand
ameoba HA!  I laugh at your puny crushings!
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ameoba sayke : ice it and STOP USING IT for a while.  if problems persist, you're fucked.
TWD hrm oh well I don't need it...
sayke haha
sayke i stopped using it
sayke its splinted
ThreeSeas Question: how do you keep read/write collisions on a file from happening in python? is there like a prohibit function of something?
dash ThreeSeas: that's not a python problem
ameoba ThreeSeas : you mean locks?
ThreeSeas locks? Hmmm
sayke holy shit
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sayke i noticed having this splinted gives me a weird bump on the inside of my hand
ameoba your palm?
sayke yea!
sayke you know the pads on the palm
sayke opposite the knuckle
ameoba where the fingers meet the hand?
sayke yea.
sayke in between the two outermost pads on my left hands
sayke is a bump
sayke but
* foohbah wants to see a sayke's hand webcam
sayke i'd like to show you!
dash "talk to the hand"?
ameoba sayke : do you see one on the right hand too?
ameoba sayke : it sounds like my hand...
sayke the bump rises when i strighten out the hurt pinkie finger
foohbah sayke: hold it toward Boston
sayke no, there's not one on the right hand
sayke haha
ameoba sayke : well... get an x-acto knife, dig in and figure out what's wrong.
sayke har
foohbah ah. anatomical debugging. interesting.
ameoba you shouldn't be afraid of exploring your own body.
dash ameoba: warning, contains no user serviceable parts
ThreeSeas Dash: I have several tasks, of which anyone of them might access a file to read or write to it. If they were just reading, no problem. But if one need to modify the file, the others need to wait....
dash ThreeSeas: yes. lock the file
ameoba 3s: what's a 'task' ?
dash yes. what do you mean by "task"?
ameoba are we talking independant processes/threads?  or just different parts of the same process?
ThreeSeas ameoba: task as in a spawned chunk of code running on a multi-tasking system
dash ThreeSeas: "chunk" as in "process"?
ThreeSeas yes
ThreeSeas threads
ameoba OS-level file locking.
dash ThreeSeas: "thread" != "process"
ThreeSeas thanks
dash ThreeSeas: you dont need threads.
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«Nick» Taranis_ is now known as Taranis.
dash ThreeSeas: describe the problem you are trying to solve with threads -- there is almost definitely a better way
dash especially if you're having file contention issues
ThreeSeas I'm not the coder but rather needing to provide a solution direction to a coder in order to solve a problem.
ameoba ThreeSeas : if you're not a coder, you should leave those kinds of arcitechture decisions up to somebody who is one.
jafo_ software suspend under Linux *ROCKS*.
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ThreeSeas the situation is that several processes might try to access a file at the same time. But if an update is being made, then .......
deltab so make sure that doesn't happen
jafo_ The APM suspend used to work fine on my laptop, but IBM has released some firmware updates that just hosed it.  It's gotten a little better lately, now it's only about a 20% liklihood that it will fail to come back from suspend, unlike the 80% before, but it still sucks.
ameoba BACK UP THE FUCKING TRUCK...  what makes you sure that you need multiple processes?
ThreeSeas ameoba: I didn't say I'm not a coder... I said I'm not the coder... as in the given coding effort
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jafo_ Yeah, shouldn't you be using multiple threads instead of processes?!?
ameoba If you don't know what a file lock is, and you claim to not be a coder, you should'nt even include things at the level in the spec you hand the coder.
deltab either make them take turns, or have only one of them in charge of accessing the file
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ameoba what you need to do is define interfaces & what functions do.  what goes on inside is a black box to be left to be designed by somebody who gets it.
jafo_ Oh yeah, if you're not going to be doing the design work, document what you want the results to be and let the designer come up with wether there should be multiple processes or what.
ThreeSeas ameoba: you don';t know what you are talking about
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jafo_ I love non-designers who can't keep their hands out of the design.
jafo_ NOT!
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ThreeSeas OK Jerks... I need variables and their values stores in files... files that many fucking prograMS VCAN POSSIBLY ACCESS AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME
ThreeSeas What the fuck don't youy get?
sayke hehe
ThreeSeas pissing all pof the damn place with arrogance
jafo_ I have a love hate relationship with users to try to influence the design.  Only without the love.
sayke ThreeSeas: sounds like you need locks then
sayke you can do it at a filesystem level
jafo_ Or a database...
ThreeSeas yeah... probably... thanks
jafo_ Or you could use atomic updates.
jafo_ Or a semaphore, which unfortunately the base Python doesn't include.
inapt huh?
ameoba jafo_ : are semaphores really appropriate for separate program instances?
jafo_ ameoba: Yeah.
inapt jafo_: threading has all the locking stuff, including semaphores
jafo_ I usually do locking using the "jlock" add-on module, not suprisingly.  It does dot-locking.
jafo_ inapt: Are those actually interfaces to the system semaphores, or are they implemented in the Python interpreter?  I believe it's the latter and multiple processes won't be synchronized by them, only threads in a single program.
inapt jafo_: yep. you're correct. they're for multithreaded programs only.
jafo_ It's a curse...
inapt In the end, they use whatever thread_{nt|os2|pthread|...}.h uses
jafo_ Perhaps, but the API is that you create a semaphore object and then acquire/release that. Which doesn't really work across processes.
inapt nope
inapt i'm not very experienced with the multi-process model, anway (to say the least)
inapt but would it not be possible to use shared memory for locks?
jafo_ Yes.  If you're careful...
jafo_ extremely careful...
jafo_ semaphores will work with SMP and other things where multiple CPUs can be running the same code at the same time.
ameoba semaphores would be safer than shm...
inapt are you talking about these "POSIX semaphores" ?
ameoba POSIX HAS SEMAPHORES!?!??!?
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jafo_ I think I'm talking about SVID semaphores.
«AutoAway» ote:You are now set AWAY due to inactivity.
«Away» We'll miss you
inapt (I know zero about either)
ameoba semaphores are easy.  using them correctly can be trouble.
inapt but it looks like yet another funny cross-platform issue to me.
jafo_ I don't know what posix semaphores are.
jafo_ SVID semaphores use "semget", which is fairly well implemented.
inapt Posix semaphores are described in my glibc manual. 1) pinfo libc 2) "POSIX semaphores"
inapt I've seen them used in fog's psycopg
ThreeSeas How to cause limitations
«Away» Does this mean you're really back?
ameoba heh...  I'd assume that POSIX semaphores were SVID semaphores that had been included in a new standard.
jafo_ So, I have a "shmbench" I wrote a long time ago which sets up two processes talking to eachother using shared memory.  It can run in two ways -- one way it uses "spin locks", where one process writes a string into the shared memory at offset +1, then writes a 1 at offset 0, then waits for that 0 to change to 1.  The other process does the inverse.
ameoba the other way?  using semaphores & shm?
jafo_ Running in that mode with spinlocks (just checking for the 0 to change to a 1 by checking all the time), I get a rate of 31 laps per second because of scheduler latency.
jafo_ If I run it in semaphore mode, I get 150,000 laps per second.
jafo_ That's on a UP box.  If I run it on an SMP box, spinlocks really kick ass...
inapt I might sound clueless ...
inapt but is that stuff I can see with 'ipcs' related?
inapt 'semaphore arrays'
jafo_ Yes.
inapt ah.
inapt i needed to clear a PostgreSQL related one once.
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dash tee hee
dash good old timmy
inapt hey dash
dash ThreeSeas: Read this: come back when you've come up with an original argument - >http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/18/22112/860
ameoba jafo : are spinlocks sufficiently faster on a SMP machine to offset their lameness on a UP machine?
inapt ah. moshez' article.
ThreeSeas dash: looking for an excuse?
inapt I've read it and found it quite good.
dash ThreeSeas: No. just looking to not repeat myself for the umpty-jillionth time
tig what does this statement mean:  "strictly speaking, the operand of the logical operators should be boolean expressions, but Python is not very strict."
dash tig: it means "i am a narrow-minded git and i dislike python"
inapt tig: Python works with nonzero-ness
inapt tig: if something is nonzero, it is considered true
tig dash: eh?
inapt tig: otherwise, it is considered false
dash or has a nonzero length
tig inapt: thx
inapt tig: None, "", [], empty tuples, are all zero.
inapt tig: about everything else is nonzero.
dash ThreeSeas: anyway, if you aren't writing the code, then you aren't qualified to talk about it
inapt tig: that's why None or 5 yields 5.
ThreeSeas Christ! I don't have to read but a little of that to know you have no idea what I'm trying to do.
ameoba tig : he says that the things compared by and/or/not should be true/false values (as in the result of ==, >,<, !=, in, etc) instead of other values.
tig inapt: but an operand as a boolean expression?
inapt tig: sorry?
dash ThreeSeas: ok. so what, exactyl, does that article and following comments not address?
tig inapt: "the operands of the logical operators should be boolean expressions"
ameoba (a != 0) and (b !=0)  instead of a and b
tig oh
tig i see
inapt hmm
dash tig: which is why i said what i did
jafo_ ameoba: Yeah, I don't recall what it was I was seeing performance wise, but IIRC spinlocks on a SMP machine were like 100x faster than semaphores for this benchmark.
inapt in the mathematical sense, a value is probably just defined as the minimal form of an expression :)
jafo_ Obviously, you want to decide wether it makes sense and perhaps auto-detect if they make sense before using them.
inapt i. e. True|False
lament tig: that's very disgusting, by the way, and it's great python doesn't do that
tig lament: i agree, but dont most languages?
lament Don't know about "most languages"
ameoba damn... stil not worth offsetting the 7000x faster semaphores were on the UP machine unless you were certain taht you were going to be on an SMP box
ameoba tig : what mean you by 'most languages'?
lament ameoba: probably C and C++
tig i guess i meant the most popular languages these days
lament tig: yes, that's quite different from 'most'
tig c, c++, perl, java, c#, etc
ameoba c & C++ also work on non-zeroness, but python has slightly different handling of the actual value returned.
inapt the c-ish crap :-P
ameoba I know that Excell doesn't have such an idea of truth
jafo_ ameoba: Hence my saying that you probably want to auto-detect.
dash ameoba: well, because python doesn't make a distinction between "values" and "objects"
ameoba with Excel, you need to have an actual true/false value.
exarkun Damned Excel!
dash also with java
exarkun Also a damned creation.
ThreeSeas Dash: what does the internet not address?
ameoba my dad's taking a class in excel, so I find myself doing a lot of ugly nested conditionals in excel
dash ThreeSeas: ok, back up
dash ThreeSeas: you said "you have no idea what i'm trying to do"
dash ThreeSeas: why did you say that?
ThreeSeas 419 comments .......is that alll?
ameoba o/` you are the best listener I've ever met / you're my best friend / best friend with benefits o/`
dash ThreeSeas: answer the question.
exarkun ThreeSeas: So what *are* you trying to do, anyway?
* Glammie used to hate Alanis.
Glammie Now I like to listen to her music.
ThreeSeas I'm trying to insure read/write collision doesn't happen.
inapt USE LOCKS
ThreeSeas And there may be a solution that is not mentioned
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dash inapt: or, "only do one thing at a time"
dash ThreeSeas: "may"?
dash ThreeSeas: why do you say that?
inapt or go to #twisted, where they'll explain to you how to do one thing at a time
ThreeSeas inapt: I've been looking in ORiely books for locks and don't find much on it
inapt ThreeSeas: what's your requirements?
ameoba ThreeSeas : man flock
inapt ThreeSeas: then we can suggest a solution.
inapt files & locks => flock, for example
ThreeSeas serial stream... priority given to process with higest unique number in the event of a tie...
dash ThreeSeas: why?
ameoba what'd handle the stream?
ThreeSeas flocks? Ah.....
ameoba fcntl.flock() in python
inapt ThreeSeas: how many readers? how many writers?
dash more importantly, what are they doing?
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ThreeSeas unix only
ThreeSeas number of readers and writers.... unknown
inapt and they all access a single file?
exarkun ThreeSeas: You don't even have an order of magnitude?
exarkun ThreeSeas: 1? 100? 10000?
dash heh. does it matter? there's only "one or more"
ThreeSeas how is stdout schedualed when several programs or process are trying to writ to it at the same time?
dash ThreeSeas: It isn't.
ThreeSeas dash... and there is the solution
dash ThreeSeas: please answer my question
exarkun dash: Sure it matters
dash exarkun: keep in mind who you're talking to
ThreeSeas variable ; tag ; value
exarkun dash: Well, if we were discussing a real situation instead of a hypothetical in someone's fantasy world...
dash exarkun: then it might matter :)
ThreeSeas file of variabls ; tags; values
dash ThreeSeas: why?
inapt ThreeSeas: one file? if yes, then, as dash says, 'why?'
ThreeSeas Because that is the way it is.
inapt ok.
dash ThreeSeas: what does this data signify? why multiple processes writing to it? what are the processes doing with the data?
ThreeSeas they are VIC variables
ThreeSeas where more than one instance of a VIC can be running
inapt ThreeSeas: I'd use a SQL database
dash why more than one instance?
ameoba perhaps having them communicate w/o a file might be better...
ThreeSeas normally a VIC would have it's exclusive set/file for variables... but in some cases there is a sharing in both read and write
dash inapt, ameoba, exarkun: you guys all done?
inapt dash: yes, hearing 'VIC', I'm out
ThreeSeas SQL for what?
«OP» ChanServ gives channel operator status to dash
inapt ThreeSeas: accessing the data.
«Kick» You have been kicked out of channel #python by dash: the doctor is [OUT]
«Error» Python That channel doesn't exist
--> You have joined channel #python.
«Topic» Topic for channel #python is Don't let the carrots fool you.  The time for action is... umm... sometime next week.
«Topic» Topic for channel #python has been set by ameoba on 20:22:29 22-11-2002
«Names» Users on #python: ThreeSeas _Kengur sam22 lament cliechti Glammie fariseo aum Taranis dida red_one proteusguy ivan foohbah jafo_ a3ws00 itamar gp sayke inapt tvon MisterP booyeah dash tsiar Kengur fog|zZzZ attila flippo_ kemu ameoba duplexer TWD asqui jonI dan deus_x _AleX_ seme Crast r0kwork ry Netikular jor Tangent glyph d0rt r0ky_ joona alb juri _jacob radix rc scn liiwi xeno42 colyte kittonian dunker z0mbie Thunder- exarkun af h3x deltab grib john zbir
«Names» Users on #python: frangen phed hhg Taaus ketaset paolo msm skylan noa_ jonez Yhg1s sjj plaisthos vegai steinn cmg eikeon teratorn Erwin[work] drewp Matt|| moshez Tmu Acapnotic wnp22 Sublime VladDrac sprocket_ mr_smith TenOfTen Fade psy gresco Setzer Lerris- snibril rik tig benz007 flippo Therion pyn skreech LordVan datazone zl0- tav|hiber _moshez Logan jamiebecker acct
«Names» End of /NAMES list.
-ChanServ- [#python] Welcome to #python, puny fleshlings. See the #python FAQ at http://www.purl.org/wiki/python/PythonFaq - see also http://python.org/ for docs and links. And remember: there is no PSU.
«Mode» Current modes for #python: no messaging
«Mode» Channel #python was created on 02:27:37 11-06-2002
dash inapt: no
dash inapt: well actually
dash inapt: why not
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ThreeSeas what is your problem dash?
xcabbage gres, why did you paste that huge emacs manual into #flood?
exarkun ThreeSeas: You're a waste of time
dash ThreeSeas: you're incoherent, uncommunicative, and as exarkun says, a waste of time
ThreeSeas says which dictatorship?
dash ThreeSeas: you aren't writing this code, you aren't explaining how the decisionsare being made... what do you want from us?
dash ThreeSeas: why do you expect us to tolerate your nonsense?
ThreeSeas you have a problem in understanding the files access?
inapt  /IGNORE -replies *!3seas@* ALL
inapt <-- is that correct IRC syntax?
dash threeseas: _you_ have a problem understanding that we are not here to rubber-stamp your ideas
dash inapt: you can probably drop the '-replies'
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inapt  /IGNORE *!3seas@* ALL
inapt sorry.
ThreeSeas I asked a question, python related...
dash threeseas: yes. if you ask a question here, it takes work to get it answered; work on your part, and ours
dash threeseas: if you aren't willing to put forth the effort to explain what you're doing and why, then i dont see why we should feel obligated to either
ThreeSeas I'm a genius... If I can't answer your question I will try and make out that you don't know what you are talking about..... but are there really 120 users here that hail to ...... dash
exarkun Haha.
exarkun dash: just finish it
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ameoba MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAH
ameoba ThreeSeas : isn't it a little suspicious that NOBODY has ever understood your grand ideas?
«Quit» Kengur (~kengur at moscow-pp3.access.sinet.slb.com) has signed off (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)).
ThreeSeas a few claim that
ameoba ThreeSeas : there's always the possibilty that you're so far above us that we're left in your dust...  but isn't there a possibility, however remote, that YOU ARE OFF YOUR ROCKER?
inapt I'm pretty sure that they'll be much easier to implement in a more flexible language.
inapt He might want to join #perl instead.
ameoba #lisp
dash ameoba: Probably.
inapt fine with me too ;-)
ThreeSeas a file exist which holds a list of --- variable name ; a tag value ; and a variable value
ameoba 3s : consider http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
ThreeSeas the file can be read and written to by more than one process/program.
ThreeSeas The concern is over read/write collision.
dash ThreeSeas: Why?
dash ThreeSeas: Why should these processes attempt to share the file?
ameoba asuming that this program is going to be some sort of shell/command interpreter/user interface/etc, if they need to share state, a file isn't going to cut it.
ameoba s/file/flat file/
ThreeSeas why is there such a thing as global?
dash ThreeSeas: Irrelevant. Answer the question.
ThreeSeas only with a file other things are possible
dash ThreeSeas: Wrong.
ThreeSeas why?
dash ThreeSeas: I can think of at least three or four other ways to solve the problem, but you have not told us what the real problem is
ThreeSeas sure I have
dash ThreeSeas: i'm not going to explain each one at length in hopes one of them is the correct one for your problem.
ThreeSeas you just don't want to hear it
dash ThreeSeas: ok, one last chance:
ThreeSeas a file exist which holds a list of --- variable name ; a tag value ; and a variable value
dash ThreeSeas: what are you doing that requires multiple processes to share state?
ThreeSeas the file can be read and written to by more than one process/program.
dash ThreeSeas: wrong answer.
ameoba that's all fine and dandy.   what are the variables for?
ThreeSeas to pass values
dash ThreeSeas: pass from what to what?
inapt Ok, I'll go play UT. The S/N ratio is much better in the UT chats :-P
exarkun dash: why bootheerrr
dash inapt: yes.
ameoba if you have 5 instances, and each one of them is setting and unsetting variables willy-nilly, using a file to share this data is a Bad Idea.
dash exarkun: i'm nearly done
inapt cu
exarkun ok, cool.
«Nick» inapt is now known as inapt|detached.
teratorn ameoba: i cant see how it would ever be a good idea
ameoba inapt : S/N is better, for sufficiently large valuations of penis/gay/fart jokes
foohbah teratorn: conceptual art?
dash foohbah: no :)
ameoba teratorn : I can't say it'd be the best idea, but if the 'variables' are really more of a configuration system than a variable/state thing, it'd be right..
dash ameoba: no it wouldn't
dash ameoba: there's no difference
ameoba dash : everything uses files for config.
dash ameoba: if it's a configuration system, you dont write to it at runtime
exarkun If you need to interoperate with something else that can't be changed and expects configuration to be in a file and also respects file locks, it might be an ok idea
dash exarkun: sure, but remember the context. ;)
exarkun Yes
ameoba of course that's an outside case, and sounds unrelated to the task at hand.
exarkun The context is "My name is ThreeSeas, and I am a retard." so it's not applicable
foohbah Flying pigs might also be a good idea, but I'm not sure it's worth discussing at length.
itamar exarkun: saw my comment on #twisted?
dash foohbah: why not! pigs are cheap, affordable air travel for everyone
ameoba foohbah : flying pigs are scheduled to be included after the DWIMer (which, IIRC, is going to be in 2.7)
dash foohbah: although the people under the porcine airways might complain about the pollution
* foohbah hopes we can find something or someone else to torment soon
dash ThreeSeas: where'd you go?
ThreeSeas several programs are writing to stdout....by redirecting stdout to a file append.... a variable that shows up more than once is set to the last value given.... problem solved
ameoba riiiight
--> aggregate (aggy at ip68-1-95-9.pn.at.cox.net) has joined this channel.
dash ThreeSeas: you didn't answer my question
dash <dash> ThreeSeas: pass from what to what?
ThreeSeas from a to b
exarkun ThreeSeas: You are stupid
exarkun ThreeSeas: You are stupid
exarkun ThreeSeas: You are stupid
exarkun ThreeSeas: And do not forget
exarkun ThreeSeas: You are stupid
dash ThreeSeas: what are 'a' and 'b'?
* ameoba hands around the ceremonial LARTs
dash ThreeSeas: if you aren't going to _try_ to cooperate, then you need to go.
ThreeSeas what do you use variables for? to pass value around
ameoba "I am considering transporting a product between two points.  What type of snow tires would you recomend?"
dash ThreeSeas: No. You do not understand. You cannot answer a question with another question.
ThreeSeas I also gave the answer
dash ThreeSeas: No, you didn't.
dash "from a to b" is not an answer.
ThreeSeas to pass value around
ameoba The socratic method is reserved for the one who understands what is going on.
dash ThreeSeas: "pass" from where to where?
ameoba ...in which case, NONE OF US can use it.
foohbah the troll method is reserved for trolls
ThreeSeas from where it is set to where it is used.
dash foohbah: we had a good troll by here earlier
dash ThreeSeas: Also not an answer.
foohbah msg dash better than threeseas?
ThreeSeas define variable dash.
dash ThreeSeas: No.
ameoba ThreeSeas : you're the one using the term, what do YOU think it means
dash ThreeSeas: Game over, man. If you cant answer questions coherently, it's time to go. Come back when you can explain what's going on in your head.
«Quit» foohbah (~chatzilla at pool-141-154-242-2.bos.east.verizon.net) has signed off ("sheepishly practices typing slashes. Slashes wrists. Goes to bed.").
«OP» ChanServ gives channel operator status to dash
«Kick» You have been kicked out of channel #python by dash: your time is up
«Error» You are banned from channel #python.


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