flaming vs accuracy [was Re: Performance of int/long in Python 3]

[rurpy at yahoo.com]

On 03/28/2013 02:31 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:
> On 03/28/2013 12:54 PM, rurpy at yahoo.com wrote:
>> On 03/28/2013 01:48 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> For someone who delights in pointing out the logical errors of
>> others you are often remarkably sloppy in your own logic.
>> 
>> Of course language can be both helpful and excessively strong. That
>> is the case when language less strong would be equally or more
>> helpful.
> 
> It can also be the case when language less strong would be useless.

I don't get your point.
I was pointing out the fallacy in Steven's logic (which you cut).
How is your statement relevant to that?

>> Further, "liar" is both so non-objective and so pejoratively 
>> emotive that it is a word much more likely to be used by someone
>> interested in trolling than in a serious discussion, so most
>> sensible people here likely would not bite.
> 
> Non-objective?  If today poster B says X, and tomorrow poster B says
> s/he was unaware of X until just now, is not "liar" a reasonable
> conclusion?

Of course not.  People forget what they posted previously, change 
their mind, don't express what they intended perfectly, sometimes
express a complex thought that the reader inaccurately perceives
as contradictory, don't realize themselves that their thinking
is contradictory, ...
And of course who among us *not* a "liar" since we all lie from 
time to time.

Lying involves intent to deceive.  I haven't been following jmfauth's 
claims since they are not of interest to me, but going back and quickly
looking at the posts that triggered the "liar" and "idiot" posts, I 
did not see anything that made me think that jmfauth was not sincere 
in his beliefs.  Being wrong and being sincere are not exclusive.
Nor did Steven even try to justify the "liar" claim.  As to Mark
Lawrence, that seemed like a pure "I don't like you" insult whose 
proper place is /dev/null.

Even if the odds are 80% that the person is lying, why risk your
own credibility by making a nearly impossible to substantiate claim?
Someone may praise some company's product constantly online and be 
discovered to be a salesperson at that company.  Most of the time 
you would be right to accuse the person of dishonesty.  But I knew 
a person who was very young and naive, who really believed in the 
product and truly didn't see anything wrong in doing that.  That 
doesn't make it good behavior but those who claimed he was hiding 
his identity for personal gain were wrong (at least as far as I 
could tell, knowing the person personally.)  Just post the facts 
and let people draw their own conclusions; that's better than making
aggressive and offensive claims than can never be proven.

Calling people liars or idiots not only damages the reputation of 
the Python community in general [*1] but hurts your own credibility 
as well, since any sensible reader will wonder if other opinions 
you post are more influenced by your emotions than by your intelligence.

>>> I hope that we all agree that we want a nice, friendly,
>>> productive community where everyone is welcome.
>> 
>> I hope so too but it is likely that some people want a place to
>> develop and assert some sense of influence, engage in verbal duels,
>> instigate arguments, etc.  That can be true of regulars here as
>> well as drive-by posters.
>> 
>>> But some people simply cannot or will not behave in ways that are
>>> compatible with those community values. There are some people
>>> whom we *do not want here*
>> 
>> In other words, everyone is NOT welcome.
> 
> Correct.  Do you not agree?

Don't ask me, ask Steven.  He was the one who wrote two sentences 
earlier, "...we want a...community where everyone is welcome."

I'll snip the rest of your post because it is your opinions
and I've already said why I disagree.  Most people are smart enough
to make their own evaluations of posters here and if they are not,
and reject python based on what they read from a single poster 
who obviously has "strong" views, then perhaps that's for the 
best.  That possibility (which I think is very close to zero) is
a tiny price to pay to avoid all the hostility and noise.

----
[*1] See for example the blog post at 
  http://joepie91.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/the-python-documentation-is-bad-and-you-should-feel-bad/
which was recently discussed in this list and in which the 
author wrote, "the community around Python is one of the most 
hostile and unhelpful communities around any programming-related
topic that I have ever seen".