"as" keyword woes

[Paul Boddie]

On 9 Des, 19:23, "Chris Mellon" <arka... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So hold up a second. I'm out of line for calling someone on making a
> trollish post that's not relevant to the topic, and for being pretty
> late to the party even with the part that *was* on topic, and for
> (even in the original post) going the ad-hominem route by not so
> subtly implying that Python is an ivory tower language that's not good

I believe the term was "ivory-tower thinking".

> enough for people with real problems - a clearly false statement by
> any standards, and doubly offensive from someone who *is* using it for
> real problems and who himself is a less than shining example of

You're wide of the mark now, since the complainant was referring to
motivations in the the design of the language, not the relevance of
the language outside academia (where it is also highly relevant, by
the way).

> responsible software management, but the OPs lapse into ranting in
> response to trite but accurate answers to a question he could have
> answered for himself, in detail, had he bothered to read the threads
> from the time when the issue actually matter is a reasonable response
> that we should support and validate?

Trite but accurate? References to the Zen of Python were trite and
peripheral at best, especially since the actual reasons (some actually
being offered, aside from "get used to it", which isn't a reason) are
mostly pragmatic. I think at that point, the complainant is justified
in questioning the priorities of the core developers, even though he
knows that there's no recourse at this point. The most you can blame
him for in that respect is not starting a new thread about those
topics, and it's not as if he's the first to air his grievances about
those things, is it?

> Sometimes you're not  a crusader for thinking differently and change
> by confrontation and speaking truth to power. Sometimes you're just an
> asshole.

I think you managed to enter this thread without revealing any
particular insight in the matter, so I suppose name-calling was the
most we could expect from you at this point.

> For clarification: The OPs original complaint is legitimate, if dated
> and partially his own fault. His phrasing of the problem, the tone and
> content of his email, and his lapse into flaming when he wasn't
> immediately hailed as a herald of sanity is not legitimate.

If people would confine themselves to the matters under discussion
without taking an adversarial position - after all, it's not as if the
guy just dropped in to flame everyone having never used Python - there
wouldn't be any need for anyone to lapse into flaming, tantrums or
name-calling, would there? You wouldn't even need to apologise for
calling the guy a troll, now, would you?

Paul