Do pythons like sugar?

[Bengt Richter]

On Thu, 09 Jan 2003 23:43:03 GMT, Carl Banks <imbosol at vt.edu> wrote:

>Nick Vargish wrote:
>> Carl Banks <imbosol at vt.edu> writes:
>> 
>>> I hope everyone else realizes he (Afanasiy) was being ironic.  
>> 
>> I believe your irony detector is yielding false positives.
>
>I believe your irony detector is broken.
>
>He perceived (wrongly, it appears) an arrogant attitude from Dalke,
>who was trying to point out problems with Afanasiy's code, and it's
>very obvious his statement, "My code is perfect," was in mockery of
>the attitude he perceived.  It was not hubris.
>
OTOH, it might have been neither. It could have been short for,

[Please assume for the sake of argument that] my code is perfect [ because
whatever flaws it may have are irrelevant to the question I'm trying to pose].

I don't know where the OP is from, but it could be that there, making a blunt
statement as if of fact merely proposes that it be taken as a given without
further encumbering the discussion about it. If people take the signal that
way, it can work in English too. The thing is, depending on locale-sensitive
conventions of dialog is risky on the internet, so smileys and <meta signals>
can help avoid misinterpretations. And explicit is less likely to be misunderstood. 

>As for whether programmers are metaphorical, I'll say only this:
>abstract is not the same as figurative.

IME programmers are varied ;-)

Regards,
Bengt Richter