Suggested coding style

R

rantingrick

I.e. humility?

@DevPlayer, rusi, Neil, Wes, and group

Yes, there are two views of reality; that of the absolute and that of
the relative. Both are true. It is always daytime and nighttime
simultaneously; if you look at things from a global perspective.

However, the true nature of "daytime vs nighttime" is purely a
relative observation. The fact that both exist does not falsify the
validity of the relative view. Recognizing the paradox is important
and proves you are not confined to your own selfish view points and
are in fact an intelligent being.
 
W

Westley Martínez

@DevPlayer, rusi, Neil, Wes, and group

Yes, there are two views of reality; that of the absolute and that of
the relative. Both are true. It is always daytime and nighttime
simultaneously; if you look at things from a global perspective.

However, the true nature of "daytime vs nighttime" is purely a
relative observation. The fact that both exist does not falsify the
validity of the relative view. Recognizing the paradox is important
and proves you are not confined to your own selfish view points and
are in fact an intelligent being

What paradox?.
 
A

Alec Taylor

Meh, so run your own web-server.

If wave isn't right, search on sourceforge for a while.
 
A

alex23

I never said we should remove it now, i said we should deprecate it
now.

Actually, *I* said deprecate, *you* said break. I don't see the word
'remove' anywhere in my comment.
Please Google deprecate.

Please read what I wrote rather than what you want me to have said.
Well "alex" i can't see a mob approaching with pitchforks because we
deprecate a misplaced and rarely used functionality of the stdlib.

No, but you don't see a lot of things. You're genuinely convinced that
your viewpoint is superior and singularly correct. I don't think
you're a reasonable arbiter of what functionality should be added or
removed from the stdlib.
Well "alex", like yourself, i hold expertise in many fields BESIDES
programming. One of which being psychology.

That only makes the claims that you regularly post about others even
more offensive.
 
D

Dennis Lee Bieber

May I suggest a[n] email client that can group mailing list threads?

Please do. Bonus points if it handles threading in a Gmail-like style.

You know... That question almost makes me think I should configure
Forte Agent to read some of my mailing lists to see what happens... I
use Eudora for email, but Agent does have mail capability besides NNTP
(and actually has more powerful filters than Eudora)
 
D

Dennis Lee Bieber

Everything is on topic to programmers! To (mis)quote Sheldon Cooper: "I'm a [programmer]. I have a working knowledge of the entire universe and everything it contains."

And "IBM" is willing to oblige: http://ldworen.net/fun/osvu.html

Though the version of that text that I encountered in the early 80s
also stated that there was just one CLI command -- the OS would KNOW
what you wanted done...
 
S

Steven D'Aprano

By the way, who removed the OT label from the subject line? Please don't
unless it actually comes back on topic.

I still assert that contradiction is caused by narrow perspective.

There's no doubt that some *apparent* contradictions are caused by lack of
correct information. But:

N is an even number;
N (the same N, for avoidance of doubt) is an odd number

is still a contradiction, no matter how you look at it.

[...]
If I am correct; not sure here; but I think that is part of the new
math Choas theory. (The notion that not all variables are known and
the results of well defined functions may result in completely
different actual outcomes) [Missing variables in such data sets and
functions, to me is basically a narrow(er) perspective of the all the
revelent factors for such computations.]

Chaos theory goes back to Henri Poincaré in the 1880s, and possibly even
older. 130 years is hardly "new".

The principle of Chaos Theory is not that there are some unknown variables,
but that even if you know all the variables, even the slightest error or
uncertainty in their values may lead to radically different results in the
future.

As so often is the case, something which seemed controversial when first
proposed is actually quite obvious. Sometimes errors cancel, and a small
uncertainty doesn't make any difference in the final result; sometimes
errors add, and a small uncertainty increases to a large uncertainty in the
final result; and sometimes errors multiply, and a small uncertainty can
add to a huge uncertainty. Opposition to this idea was not based on
mathematics, logic or common sense, but on the idea that God and/or Nature
would not be so cruel as to allow errors to multiply.

Or in other words, "if this were true, it would be unfortunate, therefore it
can't be true". The story of Mankind, really.
 
G

Gregory Ewing

Steven said:
By the way, who removed the OT label from the subject line?

Probably nobody "removed" it, they just replied to some earlier
message that didn't have it.

Despite the term, a newsgroup thread is not a linear structure,
it's a tree. Changing the subject line on one branch doesn't
magically affect the other branches.
 
S

Steven D'Aprano

Gregory said:
Probably nobody "removed" it, they just replied to some earlier
message that didn't have it.

I started the "Benefit and belief" sub-thread, changing the subject line
from "suggested coding style", and included a [OT] tag. So there was no
earlier message of that subject without a tag to reply to.

You know, I suspect this thread is a good example of chaos theory in
action... for something that started off about coding styles, it has ended
up in some fairly strange places...

Despite the term, a newsgroup thread is not a linear structure,
it's a tree. Changing the subject line on one branch doesn't
magically affect the other branches.

I know that. I also know that it is irrelevant in this case. If your mail or
news client has a threaded view, you can see for yourself who removed the
tag. I was just being polite by not singling him out by name :)
 
R

rusi

By the way, who removed the OT label from the subject line? Please don't
unless it actually comes back on topic.


There's no doubt that some *apparent* contradictions are caused by lack of
correct information. But:

N is an even number;
N (the same N, for avoidance of doubt) is an odd number

is still a contradiction, no matter how you look at it.

DevPlayer is probably talking of 'synthetic/a posteriori' statements
You're changing it to 'analytic/a priori' (like the OT subject line
<wink>)
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic–synthetic_distinction#Kant
)
 
S

Steven D'Aprano

DevPlayer is probably talking of 'synthetic/a posteriori' statements
You're changing it to 'analytic/a priori' (like the OT subject line
<wink>)
(see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic–synthetic_distinction#Kant
)


An interesting link. I knew the Objectivists were nuts, but I really
didn't appreciate quite how nuts they were until I read Leonard Peikoff's
criticism of Kant. Not that I necessary agree with Kant, but the
Objectivist argument basically boils down to "We would like empirical
knowledge to be 100% certain, but Kant demonstrates that it isn't.
Therefore he must be wrong."

Or to put it another way:

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."


But in any case, no, I am not merely talking about analytic/a priori
statements. Here's a synthetic/a priori version:

(a) The sum of odd numbers between 6 and 20 equals 91.
(b) The sum of odd numbers between 6 and 20 equals 93.

and here's a synthetic/a posteriori version:

(c) During the 1936 Olympic Games, the leader of the host nation had a
full beard.
(d) During the 1936 Olympic Games, the leader of the host nation did not
have a full beard.

Unlike Kant, I don't think that analytic/a posteriori is contradictory.
Here is an example:

(e) Combustion is caused by a chemical reaction between an oxidant and
some other reagent.
(f) Combustion is caused by the release of phlogiston from materials.


In all cases, we can be sure that the contradiction between the pair of
statements are genuine contradictions and not mere apparent
contradictions caused by "narrow perspective" or incomplete or erroneous
knowledge.
 
R

rantingrick

In all cases, we can be sure that the contradiction between the pair of
statements are genuine contradictions and not mere apparent
contradictions caused by "narrow perspective" or incomplete or erroneous
knowledge.

Observer: Why is it that Clark Kent and Superman are never in the same
place at the same time?
ComicFanboy: Because Clark Kent IS Kal-El's secret identity duh!
PuesdoWiseObserver: Wait a minute fanboy, they ARE in the same place
at the same time since Clark Kent IS really Superman. Ha, i'm smart.
TrueWiseObserver: Wrong pseudo. Superman will ALWAYS be superman even
if he wears a dress and stilettos. Clark Kent is just an assumed
identity of Superman.
 
C

Chris Angelico

Observer: Why is it that Clark Kent and Superman are never in the same
place at the same time?
ComicFanboy: Because Clark Kent IS Kal-El's secret identity duh!
PuesdoWiseObserver: Wait a minute fanboy, they ARE in the same place
at the same time since Clark Kent IS really Superman. Ha, i'm smart.
TrueWiseObserver: Wrong pseudo. Superman will ALWAYS be superman even
if he wears a dress and stilettos. Clark Kent is just an assumed
identity of Superman.

ComicBookGeek: Actually, they have been seen together, on several
occasions - thanks to stand-ins, dummies, or even super-speed and
changing faster than the human eye can see.
PhysicsExpert: Super-speed wouldn't work, the acceleration required to
achieve it would burn up his surroundings!

Your point?

Chris Angelico
PS. I did the arithmetic once on how much force Superman would have to
exert on his surroundings in order to be seen in two places at once.
It was like those calculations on Santa and the number of joules of
energy the lead reindeer would be copping.
 
R

rantingrick

PhysicsExpert: Super-speed wouldn't work, the acceleration required to
achieve it would burn up his surroundings!

For some definition of "super-speed" i suppose. Since we're bouncing
around the "relatives" here we need to consider this one also -> Super
Speed to a tortoise will be super-slow, say for example, compared to
the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow.
Your point?

Reductio ad Absurdum
 
D

Dennis Lee Bieber

PS. I did the arithmetic once on how much force Superman would have to
exert on his surroundings in order to be seen in two places at once.
It was like those calculations on Santa and the number of joules of
energy the lead reindeer would be copping.

Rudolph is a fake --- it's really Cerenkov radiation!
 
A

alex23

rantingrick said:
TrueWiseObserver: Wrong pseudo. Superman will ALWAYS be superman even
if he wears a dress and stilettos. Clark Kent is just an assumed
identity of Superman.

Actually, he identifies with Clark Kent, Superman is the secret
identity.

You're thinking of Batman, for whom Bruce Wayne is the mask.
 
Z

Zero Piraeus

:

Actually, he identifies with Clark Kent, Superman is the secret
identity.

You're thinking of Batman, for whom Bruce Wayne is the mask.

A dissenting view [and a Kill Bill spoiler, of sorts]:


-[]z.
 
S

Stephen Hansen

a misplaced and rarely used functionality of the stdlib.

Have you tried putting "\.zfill\(" and selecting Python in
google.com/codesearch?

It seems to have quite a few users, among only openly available code.
Considering there is a much larger body of code that isn't openly
available, its not hard to extrapolate from the search. (Then again, the
Python Community is made up of only people on this list! Everyone knows
that.)

Sure, you can use format strings, but that is a significantly more
complicated thing to do.

It may not be /common/, but is not at all unusual for one to have in a
string a number that they want to line up numerically with zeros. You
may not have had to do it a lot. But, golly, you are not a
representative sample of the world. Your code, your projects, the things
you have done, are not a representative sample of all the Python code,
projects, and things people have done with Python out there.

The "zfill" may not be a super wonderful function, used by many in most
places. But its there, its simple, its clear what it does.

Removing it means that anyone who wants to do what it did, now have to
learn a fairly complex mini-language, even if perhaps that is the only
time they will /ever/ need to use said language. That's a burden which
is just, frankly, silly.

Its nice that the format mini-language is powerful. But its nice that
there are also simple, clear, direct primitives people can use to
accomplish simple, fairly common needs.

--

Stephen Hansen
... Also: Ixokai
... Mail: me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io
... Blog: http://meh.ixokai.io/


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A

alex23

Zero Piraeus said:
A dissenting view [and a Kill Bill spoiler, of sorts]:


A fun diatribe, sure, but still an outsider view that is in direct
conflict with how the characters are actually portrayed.
 

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