Quoting relevant material for response (was: Re: python vs perl lines of code)

[Ben Finney]

"akameswaran at gmail.com" <akameswaran at gmail.com> writes:

> Hmm, and I thought it was respectful to actually address someone you
> are talking to.

On Usenet, it's respectful to all readers if you give a short quoted
passage from the message you're responding to, so we can follow the
discussion with context.

gmail allows you to do this. You have the option to edit a quoted
version of the message, removing the parts irrelevant to your
response, and putting your response following each relevant part.

> Must every statement be a reaction to a quotable comment?

Not necessarily. But if you're only making new statements, you should
compose your message as a new topic, instead of as a reply to an
existing message.

> In any case, I realize I was completley wrong.  Please allow me to
> retract my statement.

It's hard to see what that is, since you don't provide any
context. Are we expected to re-read the entire thread to guess what
you're referring to?

-- 
 \      "Not using Microsoft products is like being a non-smoker 40 or |
  `\    50 years ago:  You can choose not to smoke, yourself, but it's |
_o__)            hard to avoid second-hand smoke."  -- Michael Tiemann |
Ben Finney