slightly OT: BUT NEEDs to be said

[Mike C. Fletcher]

Oh, I *so* have more important things to do :) , but okay, I'll play 
along for a few seconds...

Nomen Nescio wrote:

>In article <lvOdnRJzZ9244ezdRVn-uQ at powergate.ca>, Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com>
>wrote:
>  
>
...

>Cuddly cartoon characters like the Snake, or various BSD creatures = highly
>acceptable and good.
>  
>
In terms of "acceptable and good" I think you'll find that Snakes and 
Devils/Daemons aren't really high on many people's lists, but then you 
know that and are just yanking the chain ;) .

>MPFC = too aristically/politically/socially 'loaded' to be acceptable.
>  
>
Here's the thing, you object to the use of MPFC because you see the 
particular show as a *silly* waste of money.  It's *not taking yourself 
so seriously that you lose your sense of humour* that makes MPFC a fine 
choice.

The commercial-tower Oak runs around telling the world that it's the 
second coming of computer science, the caffeinated solution to all your 
problems if you'll just sit down and drink the acorn tea.  It knows that 
if it can just scream loud enough then people will overlook it's poor 
character and weird obsessions and maybe pronounce it king.

Python hasn't developed that level of insecurity, it's perfectly willing 
to admit its failings, it's happy to poke fun at itself and admit that 
it needs C to be successful; sure, it's better and more privileged than 
all of the other programming languages; sure, it's had the best 
education and derived huge benefit from it; sure, it's received 
patronage from the programming elite; sure, it has metaclasses, list 
comprehensions and descriptors like any decent ivory-tower language; but 
in the end, all that means nothing if it can't find the humanity in the 
situation of explaining things to computers, if you can't make 
programming just a little easier for the regular folks.

And if you are taking all *that* seriously, then really, go do a funny 
walk somewhere and relax about it. We all pay taxes, and sometimes it 
funds things we don't like, it's part of modern life.  Sometimes other 
people like TV shows we think are insipid or offensive, this too is part 
of life, and if you realise and accept that (within reason) you'll be 
happier and more content.

Oh, and I like the snake more than the TV show too ;) .

Good luck with coming to terms with all this,
Mike

_______________________________________
  Mike C. Fletcher
  Designer, VR Plumber, Coder
  http://members.rogers.com/mcfletch/