Asp Forum - The big shots - comp.lang.python

Aaron Brady

2/19/2008 3:14:00 AM

I'm a little dissatisfied, and just thinking aloud.

Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.

Lesser individuals than they could not have invented Python, and would
be liable to ban me merely for this post. Notwithstanding.

The reason they have cited is, "It is not in prevalent use."

The printing press, rail, automobiles, and Python, were not in
prevalent use before their invention. I.e., they -can't- come if one
doesn't build it. However, there were writing, transportation, and
programming before these respectively; does it merely suffice to
answer, "Yes it is?"

The Python gurus' combined professional judgement results in Python.

Looking through http://www.python.org... , their own proposals
don't meet their own criteria. Start there.

It is neither necessary nor sufficient that an expansion is or would
be used.

47 Answers

Steve Holden

2/19/2008 3:41:00 AM

castironpi@gmail.com wrote:
> I'm a little dissatisfied, and just thinking aloud.
>
> Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
> Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.
>
> Lesser individuals than they could not have invented Python, and would
> be liable to ban me merely for this post. Notwithstanding.
>
> The reason they have cited is, "It is not in prevalent use."
>
> The printing press, rail, automobiles, and Python, were not in
> prevalent use before their invention. I.e., they -can't- come if one
> doesn't build it. However, there were writing, transportation, and
> programming before these respectively; does it merely suffice to
> answer, "Yes it is?"
>
> The Python gurus' combined professional judgement results in Python.
>
> Looking through http://www.python.org... , their own proposals
> don't meet their own criteria. Start there.
>
> It is neither necessary nor sufficient that an expansion is or would
> be used.

Well it isn't a democracy, that's true. The "big shots" are the people
who have proven themselves capable not only of *having* good ideas but
also seeing them through into implementation.

I don't believe anyone would argue that Python is the best language for
absolutely every purpose, but it's pretty damned good for most of the
tings I want to do, so I guess I am in favor of letting "the big shots"
continue to ignore half-baked ideas :)

No process is perfect. If you want to change the python development
process you'll have to join the developers.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC http://www.hold...

aahz

2/19/2008 3:42:00 AM

In article <89d15587-e8de-444c-b240-4a10305146e0@e23g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
<castironpi@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>I'm a little dissatisfied, and just thinking aloud.

What exactly are you dissatisfied with? This post reminds me of one
reason why your ideas have not been well received: it is difficult to
understand what your point is.

Perhaps English is not your native language; if that is the case, you may
wish to either improve your proficiency or find someone else that you can
use your native language with to act as your champion. (I'm not
denigrating you for not knowing English; it is simply a fact that most
Python core development takes place in English, and many of the core
developers -- including Guido himself, MaL, and MvL -- are not native
speakers, either.)

>Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
>Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.

What do you mean by "alphas"?
--
Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.python...

"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of
indirection." --Butler Lampson

Paul Rubin

2/19/2008 3:48:00 AM

aahz@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:
> >Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
> >Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.
>
> What do you mean by "alphas"?

Alpha test releases are the round of test distributions before the
beta tests, which come before the release candidates which come before
the final release. Ever since Python 2.4, Python's functools module
has supported partial evaluation, bundling up some of the arguments to
a function into a closure (also called currying). See:

http://python.org/doc/lib/module...

Apparently some stuff from python-ideas has been curried into closures
using the version of that module from some early Python test releases.

I couldn't understand the rest of the post you're replying to either.
The above was the only part I could make any sense of.

aahz

2/19/2008 4:26:00 AM

In article <7xmypx61z6.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.i... wrote:
>aahz@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:
>>castironpi@gmail.com:
>>>
>>>Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
>>>Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.
>>
>> What do you mean by "alphas"?
>
>Alpha test releases are the round of test distributions before the
>beta tests, which come before the release candidates which come before
>the final release.

Interesting, but I would bet that castironpi actually is referring to
"alpha males" (particularly in the context of "big shots"); however, your
confusion is precisely why I called it out. Incoherent writing rarely
flies well in this community (which is one reason why I love Python!).
--
Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.python...

"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of
indirection." --Butler Lampson

Aaron Brady

2/19/2008 5:09:00 AM

On Feb 18, 10:26 pm, a...@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) wrote:
> In article <7xmypx61z6....@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
> Paul Rubin <http://phr...@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
>
> >a...@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:
> >>castiro...@gmail.com:
>
> >>>Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
> >>>Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.
>
> >> What do you mean by "alphas"?
>
> >Alpha test releases are the round of test distributions before the
> >beta tests, which come before the release candidates which come before
> >the final release.
>
> Interesting, but I would bet that castironpi actually is referring to
> "alpha males" (particularly in the context of "big shots"); however, your
> confusion is precisely why I called it out. Incoherent writing rarely
> flies well in this community (which is one reason why I love Python!).
> --
> Aahz (a...@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.python...
>
> "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of
> indirection." --Butler Lampson

Who you callin' denigrates? Ahem. You think your ships don't
sink? ;)

The problem did not seem to be miscommunication, rather bias.

What part of, "No one took the train before it was invented," do you
not understand?

No one climbed Mount Everest before it was discovered, and it wasn't
the tallest mountain until then either.

Steve Holden

2/19/2008 5:22:00 AM

castironpi@gmail.com wrote:
> On Feb 18, 10:26 pm, a...@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) wrote:
>> In article <7xmypx61z6....@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
>> Paul Rubin <http://phr...@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> a...@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:
>>>> castiro...@gmail.com:
>>>>> Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
>>>>> Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.
>>>> What do you mean by "alphas"?
>>> Alpha test releases are the round of test distributions before the
>>> beta tests, which come before the release candidates which come before
>>> the final release.
>> Interesting, but I would bet that castironpi actually is referring to
>> "alpha males" (particularly in the context of "big shots"); however, your
>> confusion is precisely why I called it out. Incoherent writing rarely
>> flies well in this community (which is one reason why I love Python!).
>> --
>> Aahz (a...@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.python...
>>
>> "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of
>> indirection." --Butler Lampson
>
> Who you callin' denigrates? Ahem. You think your ships don't
> sink? ;)
>
Humor. Arf arf.

> The problem did not seem to be miscommunication, rather bias.
>
> What part of, "No one took the train before it was invented," do you
> not understand?
>
The problem with this complaint is you simply seem to be saying "there's
a better language out there somewhere". No clue as to where it is, no
clue as to how it might be approached. Merely a suggestion that adding
randomly suggested features to Python, that are currently rejected for
what appear to me to be mostly sound reasons, will somehow lead us to
these undiscovered treasures.

> No one climbed Mount Everest before it was discovered, and it wasn't
> the tallest mountain until then either.

It *was* the tallest mountain - it existed before its discovery, and its
"discovery" wasn't news to the Sherpas who had been living on it for
hundreds of years.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC http://www.hold...

Steve Holden

2/19/2008 5:22:00 AM

Carsten Haese

2/19/2008 5:26:00 AM

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:08:42 -0800 (PST), castironpi wrote
> What part of, "No one took the train before it was invented," do you
> not understand?

Actually, no one took the train before it was built. And no one built the
train before it was feasible to do so.

To take this analogy back into the world of software development, software
features only get built if it's feasible to build them. Unless you want to
contribute by building those features yourself, you're relinquishing the
decision of what's feasible to the "big shots". You get what you pay for.

--
Carsten Haese
http://informixdb.sourc...

Aaron Brady

2/19/2008 5:30:00 AM

On Feb 18, 11:22 pm, Steve Holden <st...@holdenweb.com> wrote:
> castiro...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Feb 18, 10:26 pm, a...@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) wrote:
> >> In article <7xmypx61z6....@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
> >> Paul Rubin <http://phr...@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
>
> >>> a...@pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:
> >>>> castiro...@gmail.com:
> >>>>> Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
> >>>>> Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.
> >>>> What do you mean by "alphas"?
> >>> Alpha test releases are the round of test distributions before the
> >>> beta tests, which come before the release candidates which come before
> >>> the final release.
> >> Interesting, but I would bet that castironpi actually is referring to
> >> "alpha males" (particularly in the context of "big shots"); however, your
> >> confusion is precisely why I called it out. Incoherent writing rarely
> >> flies well in this community (which is one reason why I love Python!).
> >> --
> >> Aahz (a...@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.python...
>
> >> "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of
> >> indirection." --Butler Lampson
>
> > Who you callin' denigrates? Ahem. You think your ships don't
> > sink? ;)
>
> Humor. Arf arf.
>
> > The problem did not seem to be miscommunication, rather bias.
>
> > What part of, "No one took the train before it was invented," do you
> > not understand?
>
> The problem with this complaint is you simply seem to be saying "there's
> a better language out there somewhere". No clue as to where it is, no
> clue as to how it might be approached. Merely a suggestion that adding
> randomly suggested features to Python, that are currently rejected for
> what appear to me to be mostly sound reasons, will somehow lead us to
> these undiscovered treasures.
>
> > No one climbed Mount Everest before it was discovered, and it wasn't
> > the tallest mountain until then either.
>
> It *was* the tallest mountain - it existed before its discovery, and its
> "discovery" wasn't news to the Sherpas who had been living on it for
> hundreds of years.

They hadn't discovered it -ei-ther! What is Mount Everest!?

Anyway, I am saying, "there's a good feature out there."

As I've said before: library additions are one thing; syntax changes
are another.

What, in terms of the former, do the gurus rule -out- point blank?

Gabriel Genellina

2/19/2008 6:11:00 AM

En Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:14:10 -0200, <castironpi@gmail.com> escribió:

> I'm a little dissatisfied, and just thinking aloud.
>
> Some of the ideas that have been proposed on Python-ideas as well as
> Python, have received partial evaluation from the alphas.

(Note that I'm not a Python alpha, I don't vote, approve nor reject
anything).

I skip your posts lately. Not because I have anything against you, not at
all. Just because it takes too much time for me to make any sense of what
you write, and I can't spend so much time in a single message.

This may or may not be related to your English skills (I'm not a native
English speaker, as several others in this group). Perhaps you just write
the first thing that comes to your mind at any time; but when I read that,
it looks like a random collection of phrases to me. My ex-neighbor spoke
in that way too; it was too difficult for me to follow him sometimes. The
same happened with an old girlfriend of mine; after a long speech about
the benefits of hydratation on the human being, how important is not to
forget it on winter, and how she broke a cup last Thursday, I had to
deduce: it *is* winter now, she likes tea, It must be Lipton (remember the
brand!!), her favourite cup is broken and I must find a clone... Saying "I
want a cup of tea" was not an option: too simple for her :)

I think the same happens with you. Maybe your thoughts are crystal clear
in your mind, but I'm unable to understand you, sorry.

--
Gabriel Genellina

comp.lang.python

The big shots

Aaron Brady

Steve Holden

aahz

Paul Rubin

aahz

Aaron Brady

Steve Holden

Steve Holden

Carsten Haese

Aaron Brady

Gabriel Genellina

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