What's TOTALLY COMPELLING about Ruby over Python?

[John Roth]

"Doug Tolton" <dtolton at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:gui4kvcnh64s5pnl8v625ito0lb9cm7405 at 4ax.com...
> On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 20:18:09 -0400, "John Roth"
> <newsgroups at jhrothjr.com> wrote:
>
> >I've been on c.l.py for around two years. Your statement
> >is rude and assumes things you have not bothered to check
> >out.
> >
> >There is a very simple rule for dealing with trolls, which most
> >usenet newbies learn sooner or later. If you think someone is
> >trolling, simply ignore them. Don't answer their posts, don't
> >comment on them, don't even give them the gratification of
> >a reply that says: "plonk!" Just killfile them and quit wasteing
> >bandwidth. You've got better things to do with your time than
> >maintaining an interaction that you find aggrevating.
>
> You're right, I did make an assumption that you were new to the group.
> A lot of people who are new make posts just like you did.  Saying we
> shouldn't be too harsh on Brandon, after a while they realize maybe he
> is just a troll.
>
> Perhaps my post was a bit rude, I shouldn't have automatically assumed
> you were new to this NG, although I am a bit baffled at hearing a long
> time c.l.p reading calling Every anything but a troll.  You have to
> admit, that is atypical.

The standard usenet definition of a troll is someone who posts on
a contentious (and usually off-topic) subject with the sole objective of
stiring up reactions. I've only seen two classes of reaction to his posts:
people who call him names, and people who respond to his question
in a reasonable, thoughtful, and factual manner.

That's not a troll. The questions may be ill-posed, they may not be
questions that are all that comfortable for the self-satisfied to deal
with, but questions of how Python stacks up against some other
language do go to the issue of how Python should evolve in
the future.

As I said in another subthread of this thread, there is a standard
usenet recommendation for dealing with people you think are
trolls. Simply don't respond. Don't send them any response
whatsoever. If their only purpose is to elicit responses, that
strategy won't satisfy them, and they'll eventually go away.

People are quite capable of making up their own minds about
whether or not someone is making a useful contribution to the
group, without a lot of other people running around screaming:
"The sky is falling, we've got a troll."

John Roth

>
>
> Doug Tolton
> (format t "~a@~a~a.~a" "dtolton" "ya" "hoo" "com")