Beginner needs advice

[rantingrick]

On May 28, 9:33 pm, harrismh777 <harrismh... at charter.net> wrote:
> 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.


Bravo!

PS: And yes, Steven is a master at the straw man fallacy.