New to Python: Features

[Steve Holden]

Peter L Hansen wrote:
> Carlos Ribeiro wrote:
> 
>> Kids. You should try it. When they come to you with a list of 45+
>> questions about the meaning of life, the universe and everything, then
>> you may be able to understand how did _we_ feel. :-)
>>
>> (Excuse me -- you're a retired philosophy teacher, so these questions
>> must be easy for you. Sorry ;-).
> 
> 
> Carlos, bad example!  "Meaning of life" is about the farthest
> removed thing from the level of Richard's questions that you
> could find.
> 
> More like this (forgive the lack of humour in a perfect
> opportunity for it... it's been a long day and my brain
> is doubtless too slow to make the effort effective):
> 
> Daddy, please write down answers to each of the following
> questions, paying particular attention to proper English
> usage and formatting, thanks:
> 
> 1. Do ducks have legs?
> 2. Is yellow a higher or lower wavelength than green?
> 3. What's the airspeed of an African swallow?
>    a. And an unladen one?
> 4. What recent attempts has the Hormel food products company
>    made at restricting the use of the word Spam for unsolicited
>    email?  Were they successful?  Why not?
> 5. Can we reach the ceiling if we jump?
> 6. Cement trucks
> 7. Where is mommy?
> 8. What is Google used for?
> 9. Show us.
> 10. Now.
> 11. What day is it today?
> 12. And tomorrow?
> 13. The day after?
> 14. ....
> .....
> 
> I can't go on...
> 
Well, of course, the favorite tactic of all intelligent children is a 
more-or-less endless sequence of follow-up "why"s.

> Suffice to say that rather than be delighted, Richard would
> be appalled at the sheer lack of functioning gray matter that
> his non-existent kids were demonstrating, and he'd be back
> here the next day asking us where he could find a good lawyer...
> to disown them!
> 
To be honest he's started (finally :-) to reveal himself as someone who 
might actually be prepared to put up with "serious" questions, by which 
I mean the questions in which the child was genuinely interested in the 
answer rather than indulging in simple attention-seeking (which is also 
sometimes legitimate behavior).

> (As he points out in his reply, it is a quite different case.)
> 
> -Peter

regards
  Steve
-- 
http://www.holdenweb.com
http://pydish.holdenweb.com
Holden Web LLC +1 800 494 3119