syntax difference

[boB Stepp]

From: boB Stepp <robertvstepp at gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 5:21 AM Bart <bc at freeuk.com> wrote:
>
> On 24/06/2018 00:44, boB Stepp wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 23, 2018 at 5:35 PM Bart <bc at freeuk.com> wrote:
>
> >> I'm not a user...
> >
> > Then I am truly puzzled, Bart.  Why do you even bother to hang out on
> > this list?  If you do not want to use Python and you do not want to
> > improve Python's design and implementation, what is your point of
> > being here?
>
> I wonder why it is just me that constantly needs to justify his
> existence in this group?

You snipped the unpleasant part of my paragraph: "... You *do* seem to generate
 a lot of ill will, I hope unintentionally..."

> Does someone need to be that much of a user of a language in order
> to discuss its design or its features or its efficiency, or how it
> compares with any other? You can do that from without as well as
> from within.

I don't dispute this.  But there are good ways to do this and there are bad
ways to do this.  You seem to fall into the latter category enough that at a
minimum you irritate people who care very deeply about Python, and, at worst,
outright enrage some.

<snip>

> As for why Python, it's the dynamic language I'm most familiar
> with, and I've been following it since the 1990s.

And this gets to the crux of the matter.  If this is so, why is it that you
repeatedly demonstrate a lack of understanding of the very things you are
critiquing?  I cannot recall how many times you have been called out on this
point, but it is certainly not an uncommon event.  It is one thing to have
demonstrable technical understanding of one or more concepts, and critique
those concepts with valid, or at least, interesting points, but it is entirely
another thing to be criticizing (How you are often perceived.) something in
Python while at the same time demonstrating you don't really understand the
particular Pythonic implementation or usage you are criticizing. Don't you see
the difference?  Don't you see what it is that so riles people?  But things do
not have to be this way!  As I said later in my paragraph I have been
referencing:

"... But why not take a different, more helpful tack? You seem to have a lot of
 ideas.  If you really think they are applicable to improving the Python
language, why not take your ideas, one at a time, and have serious discussion,
perhaps better on Python-Ideas, on how Python can be meaningfully made better? 
 That would be a helpful approach which I think, if done with the intention of
helping Python to be the best language it can be (Within the constraints it has
 to operate within in practice.), then I would hope your potential
contributions would be positively received by the community..."

And:

"... And of course, you would have to know how to use Python properly in
idiomatic style.  Why not choose this positive approach?  I think it would be a
 win-win for both you and Python."

Just show you genuinely care about the language and the community. Use and
understand the language as well as you can before jumping into criticisms. 
Adopt the path of the humble learner, who does not know everything about
Python.  Is this too much to ask?



--
boB

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