Teaching python to non-programmers

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 11 Apr 2014 13:59:00 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:

> I have seen plenty of cultures where people are unaware of the value of
> interleaved/bottom posting, but so far, not one where anyone has
> actually required it. Not one. 

I've been in plenty of mailing list forums where interleaved posting was 
required, but there's only so many times you can tell people off for 
being rude before you start coming across as rude yourself.

It's one of those nasty aspects of human psychology: the guy who casually 
and without malice tosses litter out of his car window, spoiling things 
for everyone, is somehow considered less obnoxious than the person who 
tells him off. Except in Switzerland, where if you leave your rubbish bin 
out more than twenty minutes after its been emptied, the neighbours 
consider it perfectly acceptable to tell you off, never mind that you've 
been at work. And heaven help you if you take your discarded Christmas 
tree down to the street too early.


> "Norm" here just means "the thing people
> are too lazy to not do". That's not a reason for anyone else doing it.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. As far as I am concerned, the 
norm here absolutely is interleaved posting. Nearly all of the regular 
posters use it, have have done so for the decade or so I've been here. 
Interleaved posting requires more, not less, work -- that's one of the 
appeals of top-posting: it makes it easy to avoid editing your post for 
sense and readability, you can just bang on the keyboard and fire off 
whatever your first thoughts were, never mind actually answering the 
questions you were asked.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano
http://import-that.dreamwidth.org/