Python and IDEs [was Re: Python 3 is killing Python]

[Steven D'Aprano]

Wolfgang Keller wrote:

>> By the way, you keep replying to people, and quoting them, but
>> deleting their name. Please leave the attribution in place, so we
>> know who you are replying to.
> 
> That's what the "References:"-Header is there for.

The References header is for the benefit of news and mail clients, not human
readers. Giving attribution in the body of your text is for the benefit of
people reading your reply, and I maintain that people are far more
important than your news or mail client.

It is rude to deliberately refuse to give attributes:

- you're saying that the person you are replying to doesn't deserve to have
their identity acknowledged even in passing;

- you're saying that you expect all of your readers to spend significant
time and effort to follow the machine references in the headers if they
want to understand who you are talking to, just to save you the one-off
cost of turning on the phrase used when replying, which every mail and news
client I know of supports (including Sylpheed);

- you are saying that anyone reading this forum via unthreaded web archives
don't matter;

- and anyone who (for one reason or another) is missing some of the
referenced posts, possibly because they have expired, or were never
delivered in the first place.

So please stop being rude, and follow the convention of both email and
usenet (as well as broader society) to give attribution to those you quote.


-- 
Steven