Egos, heartlessness, and limitations

[Westley Martínez]

On Wed, 2011-04-13 at 17:39 -0700, rantingrick 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.
> --rr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5jKMEB4hHE