Vectors in Visual Python

[Alex Martelli]

Arthur <ajsiegel at optonline.com> wrote:

> thinking that the visciousness with wihich you were attacking someone
> suggesting a proposal for an optional feature - even if an iill
> adivised proposal for and ill advised optional feature (I frankly
> don't care much about that part of the discussion one way or another)

While in my case it's essentially ALL that I care about in this
discussion: the technical aspects of Python.

> - was unwarranted, and more importantly *unwise* for someone in a

If, like you, I didn't care about the technical aspects of Python, it
sure would be unwise to get upset -- I could let the language go to hell
in a handbasket, as long as I made sure I looked good myself.

Caring deeply and passionately about something greater than oneself,
particularly something which may seem dry and abstract to those who
don't care a whit for it, might no doubt be deemed intrinsically unwise
-- and yet, there is much to be said for such passion.  Without the
ability to get passionate and inflamed, we might perhaps be wiser, but
we'd be Vulcans, not humans.  Moreover, unless some of us felt such
passion for certain technical issues, you guys who don't care would not
get the benefits of the time and energy we freely devote to them -- so
it's unwise, even from a strictly selfish viewpoint, to try to turn us
firebrands into such coolly calculating Vulcans.

> postion of community leadership - considering past, recent, and
> undoubtedly future issues that have and will arise. 
> 
> What don't *you* understand about that??

Could you _really_ believe, considering the many years of consistent
history of my posts on this group, that by reviving the issue you could
get *any* other effect but fanning the flames all over again?  THAT is
what I don't understand: whether you're doing that _deliberately_, or
out of almost-unbelievable levels of cluelessness.

> We all have are own kinds of stupidities, it seems to me.

This is no doubt the case.  For example, many of us instinctively brake
and swerve when a small animal jumps into the road in front of the car
they're driving, seriously endangering themselves and the passengers
thereby.  If we were presented the issue in a context giving us time to
reflect and react rationally -- "To how much danger to life and limb
would you subject yourself, your wife, and your children, to increase
the likelihood of survival for some stupid cat who can't wait to cross
the road?" -- we'd probably react quite differently.  And yet, while it
IS objectively stupid to behave that way, it _is_ one of the stupidities
that make us human.

A _deliberate_ and consistent preference can be disagreed with, but it's
pretty pointless to call it "stupid" or "unwise"; there is just no
accounting for tastes.  If you _prefer_ the flame about declarations to
continue for its own sake (or because you believe it makes you look
good, whatever), while not caring about its contents, I may consider
that evil and hateful, but it's neither intelligent nor stupid _per se_.
If your preferences are otherwise, and yet your behavior is easily seen
to be such as to have that effect, then THIS is indeed very stupid.


Alex