Unexpected Python Behavior

[Andrea Griffini]

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 09:32:31 +0100, Michael Hoffman
<m.h.3.9.1.without.dots.at.cam.ac.uk at example.com> wrote:

>[Andrea Griffini]
> >[Greg Ewing]
>>>[Alex Martelli]
>>>>I think it's in fact very nice syntax:
>>>This is a hack. Don't do it.
>> Who are you to question what Him, the Great Alex, says about it ?
>
>Who are you to question what Greg Ewing says?

Are we going to go around in circles forever asking
each other "who are you to say this" ?

>I'm having trouble figuring out whether the rest of this message is 
>supposed to be ironic or sarcastic or something. I can say with 
>certainty that it is pretty silly.

It's a 7am posting, so please be forgiving at least
for that reason.

I didn't reply to Alex message because it's clear that he has
a very personal problem with me (and ... no, I've no idea why).
My decision so was to stop feeding his hate and I ignored him;
that one is a problem he has with me and not the other way
around... may be he can try to find a solution inside himself
or talking to a good psychotherapist... I don't think I can
be of any help about it.

What kind of surprised me is however that no one else contested
the nonsenses and/or irrelevant facts in his message. So I came
to the conclusion that here we're leaving the land of logic.

I saw just one message saying what I (as a newbie to python)
think is obvious to at least anyone with a reasonable brain
and cold enough to think without prejudice; i.e. that defining

    def foo(x, cache=[])

when you've no intention to receive that parameter is a purely,
simply, uncontestably, stinking, ugly hack (also IMO adding
underscores to that "cache" name is not making this hack really
any prettier).

And, in case you're really interested, I'm just a programmer
with an apparently tweaked sense of humor that approached
python very recently (that's why I don't consider myself part
of the python "world", yet).

Andrea