No tabs in post PLEASE!!! (was Re: partial list sort)

[Alex Martelli]

Daniel T. wrote:
        ...
>> Since I started this subthread, please note that I did *not* push (and
>> intentionally so).
> 
> Is that why the subject line says "PLEASE!!!" that's a pretty loud shout.

I'm the one who very deliberately chose that line and its tone, and I'm
quite prepared to defend it.

Quoting from your earlier post:

>> > a constant push, for years, by recipients using broken software,
>> asking the
>> > whole planet to be polite and help them cope with their

Ever heard of "Be liberal in what you can accept, conservative in what 
you generate"?

More specifically, quoting http://www.whiterose.org/dr.elmo/faq/sap.html :
"""
Avoid using tabs in your posts.  Different newsreaders handle them 
differently
"""

Or else, for those who see c.l.py as a mailing list, then from 
http://www.gweep.ca/~edmonds/usenet/ml-etiquette.html ,
an even more gently-worded indication:
"""
Be careful when using tabs for indenting, as they will display
differently on other platforms. 
"""

These gentle admonitions have been going around on the net for years -- and 
we all can see how much good they have done.  So let's see if a more 
visible tone does some little good at least for a while.  

If you don't care whether I (and many others) can easily read the code you 
post (and perhaps comment on, or otherwise help with, it), go ahead: be an 
<expletive deleted>, violate the Python style standards' recommendation, 
the Usenet Way, AND mailing list etiquette at one stroke, as well as half 
the Golden Rule of the Net -- and claim innocence because the people who
might but won't be enabled to read, comment, and/or help your code
may be considered as violating the other half of the GRN (their software is
not being exactly 'liberal' in what it accepts, or, rather, in how it 
displays the leading tabs you love so much).

As for me, I think that one should make a reasonable effort to comply with
normal, usual, and long accepted guidelines, recommendations, suggestions 
and rules of thumb that experience suggests are needed to facilitate 
communication over the net.  If one doesn't know the guidelines &c, OK, I
guess -- reminding people of such material in a high-visibility thread may
then help remedy some of that ignorance, one can hope.  If one knows and 
deliberately chooses to violate them and impede communication, then the 
most reasonable course is probably to accept those people's obvious desire 
to cut themselves off from interaction, and avoid interaction with them.


>> brokenedness.  That
>> > push should be considered unwelcome, and politeness is misplaced
>> here.

My personal opinion is that politeness (at least formal politeness) is 
always appropriate as long as one's counterpart is similarly polite.  If and
when said counterpart breaks politeness, then I often prefer to also take
the gloves off (http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/tittat/story.htm is a
well-written presentation of a rationalization for this instinct:-).

> At any rate, I'm sorry. Normally I successfully ignore/avoid these
> religious debates, but I'm somewhat frustrated right now because I'm
> finding my job difficult.

I have no such excuses: I've never avoided debates (religions or otherwise)
nor flamewars, and my job is difficult only in the sense of "challenging and
therefore deucedly interesting" -- if I ever had an _easy_ job I'd probably 
die with boredom;-).  So, you can consider my behavior deliberate.


Alex