we want python software

[Steve D'Aprano]

On Wed, 6 Dec 2017 04:54 pm, Chris Angelico wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 4:27 PM, km <srikrishnamohan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Remember that you are wasting time of lakhs of  python subscribers by
>> asking such dumb questions being tech students.  You people can Google and
>> watch movies / songs online  and you can't find how to download and install
>> python ? That's ridiculous!
>>
> 
> This attack is unwarranted. Please don't set fire to people simply
> because they asked a question like this.

I'm going to defend KM (srikrishnamohan) -- his comments were not "an attack",
they are a well-deserved criticism of a *tech student* who apparently made
zero effort to find out how to download Python before asking others to do it
for him.

I'm sorry for the length of this post. It is trivially easy to sink the boots
in and tell KM off for his blunt criticism of the OP's request. But in the
face of this hostile environment (out of the nine people who responded to
this thread, no fewer than three have piled onto KM to tell him off), it
isn't so easy to get through the message of why we shouldn't always coddle
people asking questions like that asked by the OP, and why KM's response was
tough but fair.

It's not enough to merely shout back "No, you're wrong!", hence the length of
this reply.


Its been a while since I've seen anyone here link to "How to ask questions the
smart way":

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


and quote this:


    When you ask your question, display the fact that you have done
    these things [try to find an answer] first; this will help establish
    that you're not being a lazy sponge and wasting people's time.


(And more importantly: *you might learn something* by trying to solve your own
problem.)

And yes, I'm aware of the irony of me taking this position only a couple of
posts after I asked the group to run some code for me without explaining why
I couldn't run it myself.[1]

The difference is, I have many years of answering other people's questions,
I'm well known here, and I have a proven track record of not being a lazy
sponge. But if somebody wants to take me to task for not explicitly stating
why I wasn't running the code myself, I will preemptively take it in good
grace and accept the criticism. Mea culpa.

How likely is it that somebody who is tech-savvy enough to sign up and post to
the Python-List mailing list is not savvy enough to have heard of google or
to have thought of search terms "download Python"?

https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=download%20python

We're not talking about a young child, or some other barely computer literate
person, but somebody studying for a Bachelor of Technology in India.

Offering criticism is not attacking somebody. Not even tough criticism.

And if you are thinking that it is, well, consider the beam in your own eye
before the mote in KM's. You have just "attacked" (criticised) KM quite
harshly, accusing him of making an "unwarranted" attack (I think it was very
warranted), and using a metaphor which has particular cultural and colonial
associations in India and neighbouring countries which we Westerners should
be wary of making without good cause.[2]

When somebody mildly breaches social norms, even the norms of a tech forum,
mild shaming is often an effective method of enforcement. I'm not saying that
the OP should be doxxed, his family and employer harassed, ripped apart on
social media, but KM telling him off for wasting people's time seems fair to
me. We can assume that the OP isn't a two year old. He should know better,
and we ought to expect more from him. Its not a crime if he doesn't, but we
don't have to molly-coddle him either.

Consider your bible: a soft answer turns away wrath. But the bible never says
that the wrath wasn't justified in the first place. KM is clearly angry at
the OP's behaviour, hence his strong words. We should balance our concern
about driving away newbies like the OP with some concern about the justified
anger at needy, entitled, demanding people who take, take, take and never
give back. "Smart Questions" (above) is not just good advice, it is also a
set of social norms, and the OP violated them.

And again, consider your own beam: what you are complaining about KM doing to
the OP, is exactly what you, Ethan and others are attempting to do to KM. You
consider KM's actions to have violated *your* social norm of "be nice" and
consequently you are trying to shame KM into changing his behaviour to meet
those norms, by chastising him and telling him off for supposedly attacking
the OP, for being condescending, for being hateful.

Ironically, it appears that both KM and the OP are newbies. Aren't we supposed
to be more welcoming to newbies?


> You can be far more courteous 
> than this, even if you refuse to help. Particularly, the "you people"
> sounds like a blanket statement, which is almost certainly not useful
> to the discussion.

I think that given both posters appear to be Indian, perhaps there's some
cultural baggage that we outsiders aren't privy too. I might guess that it
could have something to do with the (allegedly) high incidence of academic
dishonesty and cheating amongst India's students, many students feeling that
they are entitled to pass courses without doing any work or studying.

http://beta.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-c1-india-cheating-20140416-m-story.html


You (and a few others) have "attacked" (criticised) someone who shows signs of
being concerned about the quality of discussion in this forum, while
encouraging somebody who shows signs of possibly becoming an entitled, needy,
demanding Help Vampire:

http://www.skidmore.edu/~pdwyer/e/eoc/help_vampire.htm

Now to be fair to the OP, Jyothiswaroop Reddy, may not realise he is breaking
a social norm for a tech group, perhaps due to cluelessness, inexperience, or
a lifetime of entitlement where his every need has been done for him. I'm not
saying he should be shunned.

But a swift kick up the (virtual) behind is a wake-up call. KM's comments were
tough but fair: Jyothiswaroop *is* wasting people's time with a simple
problem that he should be capable of solving himself, or at least making an
attempt to solve it himself, and it doesn't require much nous to google
for "Download Python" before asking for help.

In our urge to be inclusive, we forget that it is just basic simple politeness
that before asking strangers for a favour, we should make an honest attempt
to solve the problem ourselves. If you don't, but still expect others to
solve your problems for you, that's a violation of some pretty deeply
embedded cultural norms about social cheating (taking advantage of others
without giving back). Those norms are so deeply embedded they might even be
biological. I can completely understand KM's apparant anger.

The bottom line is, I disagree that KM's posts were out of line and more
worthy of chastisement than Jyothiswaroop's post.





[1] I cannot compile Python 3.6 or better on any of the computers I have
access to at the moment -- although it's probably time for me to try again in
case those dependency problems have been fixed.

[2] Given the historical practice of suttee (sati) and the questions it raises
about colonial imperialism[3], as well as the still-current practice of dowry
murder[4] and even more vicious crimes[5] in India, accusing KM of setting
another person on fire (even metaphorically) is not something I'd do so
casually.

[3] http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/india/suttee.html

[4] https://preview.tinyurl.com/y86vglvm
 
[5] https://preview.tinyurl.com/hnaa29w


-- 
Steve
“Cheer up,” they said, “things could be worse.” So I cheered up, and sure
enough, things got worse.