just ignore Guido's "rejections" [Re: Alternative decorator syntax decision]

[Jeff Shannon]

Doug Holton wrote:

> Anthony Baxter wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 09:50:18 -0500, Doug Holton <insert at spam.here> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> We can safely ignore Guido's "rejections" when deciding upon an
>>> alternative to agree upon.  Many people felt his rejections of C1 (a
>>> longtime community favorite), E1 and other alternatives were wrong.
>>> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2004-August/048134.html
>>
>>
>> Uh, what? No, you _can't_ ignore Guido's rejections - if you really 
>> decide
>> that you must have a form he's objected to, you need a _damn_ strong
>> argument to back that up. A "longtime community favorite" doesn't mean
>> a thing - this is language design, not American Idol - that a lot of 
>> people
>> like it makes no difference.
>
>
> Um, yes.  The point is to determine what the *community* decides on, 
> and *then* present that to Guido.  You're just helpping confound this 
> second vote even more.  Some people aren't voting for what they think 
> is best, but what they think Guido hasn't "rejected".  That is 
> ridiculous. You'll end up with a syntax that nobody really ever liked 
> most, even Guido.


On the other hand, if the community decides that the only thing they 
prefer to @pie is something that Guido's already rejected... then we get 
@pie. 

I can vote for Superman for president all I want, and I can talk all my 
friends into voting for him, but even if a majority of the country votes 
for Superman, he's still not gonna be taking any inaugural oath.  
Instead of voting for an impossible fantasy, it's much more sensible to 
restrict myself to voting for people/options with *some* chance of success.

Keep in mind here, that what we're trying to do is vote for something 
for which we think we can create a convincing case that it's better than 
@pie.  And Guido is the only person for whom "convincing" is relevant.  
If he's already rejected something, it will be *extremely* difficult to 
convince him that his rejection was a mistake.  I'd rather focus my 
efforts where they're a little more likely to bear fruit.

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International