Beginner needs advice

[harrismh777]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> A straw man is not when somebody points out holes in your argument, or
> unwanted implications that you didn't realise were there. It is when
> somebody makes claims on your behalf that you did not make to discredit
> you, not because you don't understand the implications of your own
> argument.

The straw-man fallacy is when you erect a "straw man" to "represent" the 
actual man (or idea) which can be easily knocked down, and then you 
proceed to knock it down (the straw-man) as though the "straw man" was 
the actual man, or idea... proving your point as-it-were against your 
opponent when in fact you have only just knocked down the straw-man... 
leaving the real man standing.

This fallacy has a couple of nuances (sometimes combined with metaphor 
or analogy fallacy) and you are a master at presenting both... 
thankfully you usually don't try to present both at the same time!  :)

In this present case the straw-man was not "me," rather the straw-man 
was the python language itself. You chose a code-snippet (one small puny 
dangle that doesn't prove a thing) and used it to speak for the entire 
language!  As though one code-block is enough to demonstrate 
compatibility for the entire language in all of its nuances and details. 
  To prove something positive with a test case requires that you provide 
*all* test cases, or that you provide an algorithm that accounts for 
*all* test cases... you cannot prove compatibility with a code-snippet.

On the other hand, all you have to do to prove incompatibility is to 
show "one" (1) test case where compatibility fails... and of course for 
the present case there are many that can be shown, in fact, hundreds of 
them.

The thing that nobody has presented here yet is that *all* the books 
declare that 3.x is incompatible with 2.x/   ... some of them go out of 
their way to tell the reader that they are only going to deal with 3.x 
and not 2.x in any way... and others go out of their way to point out 
the hundreds of nuances in details between the two languages. (and a 
good thing too, for those of us who must work with both! )  So this fact 
is not alluding the press... the point being not to bust anybody in the 
chops, but to point out that it is not helpful to move the community 
forward with a new language and get mass adoption (not just early 
adopters) to lie about the differences between the two sets... yes, for 
trivial code blocks that use prime constructs, integer math, and the 
print statement, not much has changed.  But in real world applications 
of the language there are many hundreds of details that have changed or 
been added (deleted) which will make life difficult for the uninitiated. 
Don't mislead people by saying that very little has changed.  Tell them 
that the philosophy is the same (what Chris called python 'think' ) but 
be honest about the details of syntax, environment, layout, and 
morphology.




kind regards,
m harris






kind regards,
m harris