Unexpected Python Behavior

[Andrea Griffini]

On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 15:38:14 +0200, aleaxit at yahoo.com (Alex Martelli)
wrote:

>Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote:
>   ...
>> I don't suppose it's come to your attention that Alex is the author of
>> "Python in a Nutshell" and co-author of "The Python Cookbook", and 
>> therefore rather well qualified to pontificate on the vagaries of Python
>
>Heh, this may in fact have something to do with his attacks -- we're
>both nobodies from a nowhere land (Italy well qualifies for such
>epithets;-), yet I'm reasonably well-known in this field and he's not...
>some people need no more motivation than envy, in order to start spewing
>venomonous attacks, after all;-).

So you feel attacked. You also feel being a nobody. That would
explain the reaction... but can you tell me when I started
spewing venomonous attacks ? I don't understand this part.

>Seriously, being "well qualified to pontificate" isn't really the issue
>here.  For example, Greg Ewing is surely just as well qualified, yet
>disagrees with me (and with the anonymous author of FAQ 1.4.21, and
>presumably with Ka-Ping Yee, who uses the cache-as-default idiom in the
>pydoc.py module he contributed to the Python Standard Library, ...) on
>the specific point (while agreeing with me that evaluating default
>values once at def-time is a good thing -- he has not commented on that
>on this thread, but it's easy to google for what he said in the past).

Evaluating defaults at def-time is IMO a reasonable decision;
not the only reasonable one I can see (but remember I'm a newbie),
but still quite reasonable.

(mis)using modifiable defaults is however quite another thing,
the former *allows* for the latter; but the two are not IMO the
same. One thing is what is legal, another is what is moral.

>Yet, none of us take such technical disagreements as excuses to spew
>insults at each other, nor do we have the arrogance to proclaim our
>opinions in the matter "uncontestable".

"puh-LEEZE" is the courtesy form for IMHO ? I'm an "hypocrit" just
because your little brain isn't able to grasp that difference ?

Then "I piss on your head" (please consider this as the courtesy
form for "I don't agree wholeheartedly with you") :-)

>I think these differences
>between typical Pythonistas' behavior, and AG's, are important -- and
>maybe, at one remove, they may help explain why you, I, Greg, Ka-Ping,
>etc, can be "well qualified"... readiness to listen, and to argue with
>the common courtesy civil people maintain, can help one _learn_...

Is this a calling everyone for a vote ? Sounds sorta funny...
and sort of pathetic at the same time.

Is there any specific reason for which you want me out of
python ? I was quite seriously thinking to pushing a lot for
adopting python as the main language for developing our next
CAD-CAM...

Andrea