[Tutor] How to post: Was Re: The Charms of Gmail

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 03:31:14PM +0000, Mark Lawrence wrote:
> On 23/12/2013 15:11, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
[...]
> >And what's
> >with the two spaces after a full stop?
> 
> That's UK English,

It isn't part of the English language. It's a *typesetting* convention, 
and one which was mostly popularised by the Americans in the mid-20th 
century. The history of sentence spacing is long and confusing, but 
before the invention of the typewriter sentence spacing was usually set 
to a single em-space between sentences, and a thin space between words. 
It was only after the invention of the typewriter that it became common 
to use a double em-space between sentences, and it really only took off 
and became really popular when the Americans took it up. With the 
development of proportional-width typewriters in the 1970s, and 
computerised type-setting in the 1980s, using double spaces between 
sentences is again frowned upon, as they are too wide.


> >(See how annoying it is to have the substance of your post completely
> >ignored while trivial incidentals are picked on? Are you now even a
> >*tiny* bit moved to use a single space after full stops?)
> 
> No.

And so you demonstrate my point for me.


> >>as we don't want to offend them.
> >
> >It's not about *offending* them. It's about being a tedious, shrill
> >nagger that makes the whole environment unpleasant for everybody, not
> >just the newbies. If you can give advice without being unpleasant and a
> >nag, please do so. Would you rather be "right", and ignored, or
> >effective?
> 
> I'll nag who I bloody well like until such time time as they can post 
> without pissing me off.  But what really pisses me off is people telling 
> me how to behave.

Oh the shameless hypocracy. So you think it's okay for you to be rude 
and obnoxious and nag anyone you like, but others mustn't do the same to 
you?


> So please stop nagging, you nagger.

I'm not nagging, I'm trying to reason with you. You're an intelligent 
man, surely you can tell the difference. If you actually want to support 
Python, as your signature claims, you should try to be less abrasive, 
more supportive, and lose the bad attitude. With the attitude you're 
displaying, you're doing more harm to Python than good.


> >>I mean if we do offend them, they might desert us for
> >>places such as stackoverflow, where they can read top voted answers that
> >>are completely wrong.
> >
> >I keep hearing people say this about StackOverflow, but whenever I
> >google on a question I find plenty of good answers there. Yes, I see
> >some pretty wrong or silly or ignorant answers, but not as the top-voted
> >answer. Can you show me some of these top-voted but wrong answers?
> 
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/986006/python-how-do-i-pass-a-variable-by-reference

Nicely found. That's one. Any more?


-- 
Steven