The big shots

[Steve Holden]

castironpi at gmail.com wrote:
> On Feb 20, 1:14 pm, Kay Schluehr <kay.schlu... at gmx.net> wrote:
>> On 19 Feb., 04:14, castiro... at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> The printing press, rail, automobiles, and Python, were not in
>>> prevalent use before their invention.
>> True but automobiles fuelled with newspapers and driven by Pythons
>> still aren't. Right?
>>
>> Not entirely sure what you are after but it sounds much like the quite
>> familiar Guido-doesn't-give-Python-newbies-enough-freedom-to-change-
>> the-language father complex.
> 
> Now -that- makes sense.  I'm asking him to change and do something
> different.  I can see how that would take a lot of patient
> persuading.  Clearly I don't know what it is that goes into other
> proposals either.  But why am I not getting the same responses that
> new ideas from others get?
> 
> My writing isn't unclear, just watered-down, and perhaps takes a
> tangent.
> 
'Scuse me, but you aren't able to make that judgment. Writing is 
communication, so the reader has just as much to say about its quality 
as you (more, in fact, since there are many readers and only one writer).

For what it's worth, much of your output seems to suffer from 
attention-deficit syndrome, rendering you incapable of expressing a 
single train of thought to its logical conclusion.

> It's also pretty clear at a glance what the snippet in 'ext' does.  If
> everyone is asking what extensions and abstractions I want to make, I
> may be in the minority in how open I am to contributions.  As it
> stands it's pretty good too.
> 
A classic example. You say you "may be in the minority in how open [you 
are] to contributions" but you don't say whether that makes you open or 
closed. You assume a shared opinion without justification. This is one 
of the things that makes your writing such hard going.

> If the concern is not merely what goes in, but what the authors do
> with the status that grants, that's something that I can not say or
> show you without consistency and establishing myself in a reliable
> place; it's not that they want to keep every half-baked idea out of
> the std. lib., it's that they want to keep the credit somewhat
> unified, and who it goes to is important.  I understand; just say so--
> "no, not from you, until we meet you."
> 
I don't think it has much to do with *who* the ideas come from. It's 
just that the ideas need to be fully-baked, and they need to be 
presented in a cohesive manner. A long track-record of prior 
contributions will lessen the severity of the scrutiny, but I think you 
are deluding yourself about the possibilities.

What makes you think you have the right to ask Guido to change? Python 
is the language it is largely because of his skills as a language 
designer. To presume to ask him to change the way he considers new ideas 
is ... well, presumptuous. There's a process. Use it, if you think your 
ideas merit it.

> The unified-credit wish may not even be vicious, and actually be
> rational, if the consequences come back on the language's reputation,
> and that reputation extends outside and beyond of its de facto
> merits.  If there's a mystique and mystery surrounding it, that the
> "big wigs" value, then that explains the "yes but who" reaction.  But
> other things might too, so I'm not pointing fingers.  A=> B; A; |||
> B.  A?

See, there you go being weird again. Just when you almost had me 
convinced you were capable of rational discussion. If you can't say what 
you mean then dressing it up as propositional calculus isn't going to 
make it any more convincing.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden        +1 571 484 6266   +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC              http://www.holdenweb.com/