Teaching python to non-programmers

[Rustom Mody]

On Friday, April 11, 2014 10:41:26 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Rustom Mody  wrote:
> > Right. Its true that when I was at a fairly large corporate, I was not told:
> > "Please always top post!"
> >
> > What I was very gently and super politely told was:
> > "Please dont delete mail context"
>
> Then you were told that by someone who does not understand email.

In middle-eastern society women are expected to dress heavier than in the West.
A few years ago a girl went to school in France with a scarf and she was penalized.

You seem to be cocksure who is right.
Im just curious who you think it is :-)

People whose familiarity with religion is limited to the Judeo-Christian
tradition are inclined to the view (usually implicit) that
"being religious" == "belief in God"
However there are religions where belief in God is irreligious -- Jainism
And others where it is is irrelevant -- Tao, Shinto.
[There is the story of a westerner who wen to a shinto temple and said:
All this (rites) is fine and beautiful but what's your *philosophy*
To which he was told: "Philosophy? We have no philosophy! We dance!"]


>
> That's equivalent to being told "Don't ever delete any of your code,
> just comment it out". I don't care who's saying that, it's bad advice.

The correct analogy: "Dont ever delete content from the repository"

>
> > Now when a mail goes round between 5 persons and what is addressed at one point
> > is not the immediate previous mail, bottom-posting without pruning is as
> > meaningless as top posting.
>
>
> Yep. So you bottom-post *and prune*, because that is how email needs
> to be. You do not need to repeatedly send copies of the whole thread
> everywhere.
>
>
> > What is unhelpful is
> > - to suggest that my norms are universal norms. IOW there is a fundamental
> >   difference between natural and human-made laws
> > - to lose track of statistics, in this case the population-densities of USENET
> >   vs other internet-kiddie cultures
>
>
>
> Also unhelpful is to suggest that norms should, simply *because* they
> are the prevailing practice, be maintained. Even if everyone else on
> python-list top-posted, I would still bottom-post and trim. "Normal"
> is not a justification.

Ok no argument here.
On the python list that is the norm.
Most people who are first timers have no clue about that norm.