Egos, heartlessness, and limitations

[James Mills]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 10:39 AM, rantingrick <rantingrick at gmail.com> wrote:
> You know Python is the best damn scripting language in the world.
> However we harbor a collective secret,  an elephant sized skeleton in
> the community closet, a shameful scarlet letter of heartlessness and
> ego centric-ity. Why is this the case? Why have let it go this far?
> And most importantly, why the heck are we not doing something about
> it?
>
> I have said before that Tkinter is lacking, however in the same breath
> i laid out grandiose plans for a new beginning only to have my words
> fall on deaf ears. Have we become so self absorbed as to care only for
> our status and ego and not for the community at whole? Have we adopted
> a pecking order that has become so ingrained into our minds that it
> cannot escape the clutches of our own pedantic selfishness?
>
> Some may wonder why i am ranting about this today, well i'll tell you.
> I use Tkinter quite liberally and i always seem to find a limitation
> of the GUI. Now, just because a package has limitation does not render
> it worthless, no! All packages have some limitations whether they be
> literal "brick wall limitations"[BWL], or "stumbling block
> limitations"[SBL], or whatever. Now, whilst i know for a fact that
> Tkinter has many dire [BWL] that render most packages moot. Most of
> the time a budding Tkinter noob will hit upon the stumbling block
> kind. The kind that not only trip you up, but send you flying face
> first in a festering and pungent cess pool full of feces and despair.
>
> Why must this happen i ask? Whist most of us can agree that [BWL] must
> be accepted as "facts of life" we must never *ever* accept that [SBL]
> to be the norm.
>
> Now you may be asking yourself, "What are some of the causes of
> "stumbling block limitations". Here is a short list in the promblem
> domain of software...
>
>        * Poor Documentation or lack thereof
>        * Knowledge Hoarding
>        * Selfishness
>        * Lack of alturistic tendancies
>
> These four points represent the meat and potatoes of a community in
> turmoil. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Lets discuss the
> points in detail one by one
>
> -----------------------------------------
> 1. Poor documentation (or lack thereof):
> -----------------------------------------
> Everyone knows that dcoumentation is important however at the end of
> the day laziness is the rule of thumb for profesionals and weekend
> teckies alike. But why be a part of any open source community and
> propagate laziness? We must be more strict about doumentation. However
> it seems the age old policies of "it's not what you know, but *who*
> you know" or more correct;y adapted tot he situation at hand..."it's
> not imprtant how well you document a module *unless* you are not a
> goodfella (psst: a memeber of Guido inc).
>
> -----------------------------------------
> 2. Knowledge Hoarding:
> -----------------------------------------
> Somehow, i dunno? I though this was an "open source" comminuty but boy
> was i wrong. The old "Practice what you preach" ring a bell anyone,
> hmm? We have people who would screm from the rafters about MS or some
> other company horading knowledge through evil software patenting
> practices however they have no problem going mum when "johnny the
> noob" can't get module x, y, or z working correctly because of PISS
> POOR DOCUMENTATION! I have enlightened this group long ago of the
> limitless possibilities of IDLE to be a good primer for our budding
> young programmers however like all my great brain children this one
> has been cast aside like a red headed stepchild. Guido himself carries
> most the blame squarely on his shoulders because as we all know IDLE
> was Guildo's baby. And at the beginning this baby looked like a
> keeper, however with years of neglect this baby has matured into a
> lackluster hodge podge of half baked ideas and little or no
> documentation. Not even the best pythonistas can follow this spaghetti
> code without setting aside a full weekend of seclusion that would make
> a hermit envious. Something must be done and i am sick and tired of
> the silence from capitol hill. I want Guido to answer for these
> crimes. I want hime to apologize, and i want him to sit down with me
> (and any other interested parties) so we can formulate a battle plan
> to get us out of this mess. The time for redemtion is nigh Mr Van
> Rossum.
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Selfishness and lack of alturistic tendancies.
> -----------------------------------------
> Well those two go hand in hand.
>
> nuff said.

(I realize I'm also feeding the troll here but...)

RIck (if that's even your real name).

It would be nice for once to see you get off your
lazy "butt" and actually do something rather than
continually "rant" at us. Most of us (myself included)
simply use Python in our day jobs or as a hobby.

Not once have I seen you actually "do something":
1) Write a patch
2) Formalize a new design for xyz
3) File a bug report for xyz

Complaining doesn't really get you very far, nor does
berating others (even if indirectly).

Whilst I agree that there are some folk who "might"
be guilty of egotist / arrogant attitudes there isn't
much anyone can do abou that - that's just part of
life and part of social interaction(s). Get over it.

For the most part - the Python Community as a whole
is very helpful, positive and has a lot of nice thinigs about it
(not just the language).

cheers
James

-- 
-- James Mills
--
-- "Problems are solved by method"