we want python software

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 3:33 AM, Steve D'Aprano
<steve+python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> 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.

I was the first to tell KM off, so I wasn't "piling on". The others
may or may not have been aware of my post at the time they made
theirs. It's easy to look at the end of a thread and say that people
were piling on, but usually that isn't the intention (how often do you
deliberately set out to make a thread nothing but attacks on the same
person?).

> 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]

I, on the other hand, think that it was indeed unwarranted.

1) The OP makes a lazy post
2) KM responds harshly
3) I respond, criticizing the harshness of KM's response
4) You respond, criticizing the harshness of my response.

While I absolutely agree with you that the OP should have done more
research before asking, I don't think that KM's attack was fully
warranted - at least, not in the way it was made. The text is still
above, in the quoted section; do you really think that that tone is
justified in response to a person's first post?

That said, though, I was wrong to use the metaphor I did. Mea culpa. I
did not think of the implications to people in India. KM, please
accept my apology for this.

> 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.

I would say they were comparably out of line, similarly worthy of
chastisement. Both of them were wrong. I'd like to think that my
response to KM was less wrong than either of the preceding posts, but
if you want to assert that I was also just as wrong, I'll accept that
(there were parts of it which I should definitely have thought more
about before sending). Bottom line is, I still think KM was wrong to
use the tone he did.

ChrisA