Possibly better loop construct, also labels+goto important and on the fly compiler idea.

[rurpy at yahoo.com]

On 10/30/2013 04:22 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 13:00:07 -0700, rurpy wrote:
>> On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 8:08:16 AM UTC-6, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>> On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 12:37:36 +0100, Skybuck Flying wrote:
>>>[...]
>>> Skybuck, please excuse my question, but have you ever done any
>>> programming at all? You don't seem to have any experience with actual
>>> programming languages.
>>>[...]
>>> Wait until you actually start programming before deciding what makes
>>> sense or doesn't.
>> 
>> Couldn't you have simply made your points without the above comments?
>> Those points stand perfectly fine on their own without the ad hominem
>> attack.
> 
> Not every observation about a person is "ad hominem", let alone an 
> attack, even if they are uncomplimentary. You are mistaken to identify 
> such observations as both.
> 
> "Ad hominem" is the standard term for a logical fallacy, whereby a claim 
> is rejected solely because of *irrelevant personal characteristics* of 
> the person making the claim [...]
> 
> Skybuck's experience at programming *is relevant* to the question of 
> whether or not he understands what he is talking about.

No.  You claimed his proposition "made no sense" based on your
analysis of it.  You then used your conclusion to claim he has 
no programming experience.  You can not then use that latter 
claim to support the argument that his proposition makes no 
sense.  (That is circular.)  His programming experience is a 
personal characteristic, and (limiting ourself to your arguments),
can conclude inexperience only if we've already accepted your 
conclusion that his proposal is nutty, so his experience seems
irrelevant to me.  Hence it meets your definition of an
ad hominem argument.

Secondly, the example ad hominem argument you gave, "Clearly
Julie is mistaken, she's just a girl, what would she know about 
programming?" depends on the non-validity of the logical 
implication.  Yet I'm sure you are aware that are some people 
who would find that a valid implication and if you could not 
defend it, then you would not be able to claim ad hominem.
Of course it *is* easily defendable which is why you used it 
as an example.  But in your reply to Skybuck, the implication 
is "nutty proposal" -> inexperience.  Yet we frequently see 
highly educated and experienced people who support nutty ideas
all the time, things like homeopathic medicine or psychic 
abilities.  So I think your claim that you were not using an
ad hominem argument is weak on that ground too.

(Even if none of the above were true, I would still ask, why 
shouldn't someone's opinion on a programming topic stand on 
their arguments alone without regard to whether they've written
code on a physical machine?)

> If you consider that merely suggesting that somebody is not experienced 
> at programming counts as an attack, well, words fail me.

You didn't "merely suggest", you claimed it to be true:

  "Wait until you actually start programming before deciding
  what makes sense or doesn't."

>[...]
> I think it is quite unfair of you to misrepresent my post as an attack, 
> particularly since my reply gave an example of a type of loop that 
> supports Skybuck's position.

It wasn't unfair because it wasn't a misrepresentation.  Your 
irrelevant speculation about programming experience when the
issue he brought up was constructs for loops would raise most 
people's hackles who offered their opinion in good faith.

Further, quoting from his original post, 

  "(after having some experience with python which lacks repeat 
  until/goto/labels and programming game bots)"

you are also implying he is a liar.  So yes, it certainly is 
fair to describe your response as an attack. 

Given that your speculation added nothing to the reasonable
part of your response (which as I said was perfectly fine on 
it's own) and likely served only to antagonize, why add it?
(Unless of course you enjoy a good flame-fest like so many 
of the resident trolls here.)