Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Dec 2)

[Cameron Laird]

QOTW: "Python makes it easy to implement algorithms." - casevh

"Most of the discussion of immutables here seems to be caused by
newcomers wanting to copy an idiom from another language which doesn't
have immutable variables. Their real problem is usually with binding,
not immutability." - Mike Meyer
Among the treasures available in The Wiki is the current
copy of "the Sorting min-howto":
http://www.amk.ca/python/howto/sorting/sorting.html

Dabo is way cool--at least as of release 0.5:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....cf84a4f8b3d34/

Tim Golden illustrates that wmi is *not* the only way to
access win32 functionality, and in fact that Python can
mimic VisualBasicScript quite handily. It's only mimicry,
though; VBS remains better suited for this specific class
of tasks:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....4850666488500/

Claudio Grondi explains ActiveX componentry--OCXs, the
registry, apartments, ...--for a Python audience:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....1306f2d6f6927/

Dao is a novel high-level language which advertises strong
multi-threading, Unicode, and particularly comfortable C++
interfacing. Limin Fu provides details:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....8fac8dda696d9/

Donn Cave leads at least a score of others in comparing
lists and tuples:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....ba8df451d57e0?

================================================== ======================
Everything Python-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in
these pages:

Python.org's Python Language Website is the traditional
center of Pythonia
http://www.python.org
Notice especially the master FAQ
http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html

PythonWare complements the digest you're reading with the
marvelous daily python url
http://www.pythonware.com/daily
Mygale is a news-gathering webcrawler that specializes in (new)
World-Wide Web articles related to Python.
http://www.awaretek.com/nowak/mygale.html
While cosmetically similar, Mygale and the Daily Python-URL
are utterly different in their technologies and generally in
their results.

For far, FAR more Python reading than any one mind should
absorb, much of it quite interesting, several pages index
much of the universe of Pybloggers.
http://lowlife.jp/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/P...grammersWeblog
http://www.planetpython.org/
http://mechanicalcat.net/pyblagg.html

comp.lang.python.announce announces new Python software. Be
sure to scan this newsgroup weekly.
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=d...ython.announce

Steve Bethard, Tim Lesher, and Tony Meyer continue the marvelous
tradition early borne by Andrew Kuchling, Michael Hudson and Brett
Cannon of intelligently summarizing action on the python-dev mailing
list once every other week.
http://www.python.org/dev/summary/

The Python Package Index catalogues packages.
http://www.python.org/pypi/

The somewhat older Vaults of Parnassus ambitiously collects references
to all sorts of Python resources.
http://www.vex.net/~x/parnassus/

Much of Python's real work takes place on Special-Interest Group
mailing lists
http://www.python.org/sigs/

Python Success Stories--from air-traffic control to on-line
match-making--can inspire you or decision-makers to whom you're
subject with a vision of what the language makes practical.
http://www.pythonology.com/success

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has replaced the Python
Consortium as an independent nexus of activity. It has official
responsibility for Python's development and maintenance.
http://www.python.org/psf/
Among the ways you can support PSF is with a donation.
http://www.python.org/psf/donate.html

Kurt B. Kaiser publishes a weekly report on faults and patches.
http://www.google.com/groups?as_usub...python%20patch

Cetus collects Python hyperlinks.
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_python.html

Python FAQTS
http://python.faqts.com/

The Cookbook is a collaborative effort to capture useful and
interesting recipes.
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python

Among several Python-oriented RSS/RDF feeds available are
http://www.python.org/channews.rdf
http://bootleg-rss.g-blog.net/pythonware_com_daily.pcgi
http://python.de/backend.php
For more, see
http://www.syndic8.com/feedlist.php?...ShowStatus=all
The old Python "To-Do List" now lives principally in a
SourceForge reincarnation.
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid...70&func=browse
http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0042.html

The online Python Journal is posted at pythonjournal.cognizor.com.
ed****@pythonjournal.com and ed****@pythonjournal.cognizor.com
welcome submission of material that helps people's understanding
of Python use, and offer Web presentation of your work.

del.icio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary.
It already aggregates quite a bit of Python intelligence.
http://del.icio.us/tag/python

*Py: the Journal of the Python Language*
http://www.pyzine.com

Archive probing tricks of the trade:
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=d...python&num=100
http://groups.google.com/groups?meta....lang.python.*

Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
http://www.ddj.com/topic/python/ (requires subscription)
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups...t=0&scoring=d&
http://purl.org/thecliff/python/url.html (dormant)
or
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Python-URL!&as_ugroup=comp.lang.python
There is *not* an RSS for "Python-URL!"--at least not yet. Arguments
for and against are occasionally entertained.
Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
E-mail to <Py********@phaseit.net> should get through.

To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday morning
(approximately), ask <cl****@phaseit.net> to subscribe. Mention
"Python-URL!".
-- The Python-URL! Team--

Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.ddj.com) is pleased to participate in and
sponsor the "Python-URL!" project.

[rurpy]

<ge*******@gmail.com> wrote:

ru***@yahoo.com wrote:

sk**@pobox.com wrote: --snip--

If you prefer the latest documentation, bookmark this page:

http://www.python.org/dev/doc/devel/index.html
Thanks I will keep that in mind. But the obvious risk is that it
will refer to language features and changes not in the current
version.

That's updated every few months, more frequently as new releases approach.

Well, the docs are what they are, I can find what I need.

And so it is with me too. But it often takes me much longer than it
should to find what I need. And everytime I (or you) don't find it in
Python's docs, that is evidence of the lack of quality of Python's
docs.
Are you
telling us you learned C#, smalltalk, lisp, C, perl, whatever, from 1
website only, without looking at any books, without spending any money
on IDEs or any software? Cause that's what you're asking here.
For perl and C, yes, that's (close to) what I'm telling you. Perl I
learned
exclusively from the man pages, before WWW. I used it for 10 years
before I ever bought a printed book. C I learned exclusively from the

K&R book. I tried to learn Python from the "official" docs but found
it
impossible. I bought Beasley's book (I think this may have predated
Martelli's book but I don't remember) which I thought quite good and
which I still turn to before the Python docs in most cases.
So either spend a little money, buy the Nutshell and Cookbook, (or,
If one is required to buy a book to use free software, it is not
really free, is it?
look at dozens of books, and many excellent ones:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...311503-6360648
Books are no different than anything else. There are a few good ones,
a lot of average ones, and a few bad ones. (Actually, the distribution
is probably skewed to the bad side because it is easier to write a bad
book than a good one). Also most of these books seem to be tutorial
in nature. That's not what I want. I want a clear, lucid, *concise*,
compete, accurate, description of Python (i.e. what Python's docs
should be.) Given that Beazley (and I presume Martelli) did that, and
the reference manuals of other languages did that, I don't see why
Python can't do that (other than the fact that writing documentation
is not fun for most people, and hard to do well.)
or spend some time, look at the 2 complete intro books published on the
I did. I thought they both were poor.
web, there's also:

http://awaretek.com/tutorials.html
http://www.vex.net/parnassus/
http://directory.google.com/Top/Comp...ython/Modules/
http://cheeseshop.python.org/
http://the.taoofmac.com/space/Python/Grimoire
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Programmin...ython/Modules/

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python
http://python.codezoo.com/
http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/t...8&xdiscrim=178

Here's some FAQ/gotchas:
http://www.ferg.org/projects/python_gotchas.html
http://zephyrfalcon.org/labs/python_pitfalls.html
http://zephyrfalcon.org/labs/beginners_mistakes.html
http://www.python.org/doc/faq/
http://diveintopython.org/appendix/abstracts.html
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2...rn_python.html
http://www.norvig.com/python-iaq.html
http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/index.phtml/fid/245
http://amk.ca/python/writing/warts
That's a very good list and I will save a copy, thanks. But what
does it have to do with Python's documentation?
So i don't think you ca really say the lang spec, the VM and the dev
environment in general are poorly documented.

Are you under the impression that an assortment of pages
out on the internet constitutes (or substitutes for) the "official"
documentation that comes with python?

[François Pinard]

[Ben Finney]

please study this form, carefully read the small print, fill it
properly and send the yellow copy at this address."

... "so that it can go with all the other requests I get at various
times from various people".
If he wants pink forms with blue borders, let him grant himself with
pink forms with blue borders. His way of managing has not to be mine.
If he declares being unable to read information unless it is written on
a pink form with blue borders, he has a serious communication problem,
that should not receive encouragement from me.
Astonished, you just cannot believe what you hear. Life is so
short, you think, why one would ought to stand with such guys? Perhaps because you have asked them to do something that benefits you,
Or perhaps not so specifically. When I (attempt to) submit a Python
problem (documentation or otherwise), I'm hoping some benefit to the
Python community in the long run. One of those humble drops which,
accumulated, make oceans. Most of times, in practice, I already solved
my actual problem. I'm merely trying to be a good citizen. However,
when people tell me I'm not a good citizen unless _I_ fill pink forms
with blue borders, I think they lost part of their good judgement.
If they really want pink forms, they should serve themselves by filling
pink forms, and leave me and the world alone with these forms.
As the room is full of other interesting people, you happily move on
towards them.

If you just want to have conversations, talk to whomever you like.
If you want someone specific to voluntarily do something, yes, you'll
have to meet them halfway by helping them help you.

I do not want to force anyone to anything. This is mostly volunteer
work. You know that. The problem I'm reporting here is this pink form
mania. _I_ would volunteer something, that they'd ask for pink forms.

I've been in the area of free software maintainance for a very long
while, collobarated with maybe a hundred of maintainers, and
corresponded with surely many thousands of users. No doubt it was a lot
of work overall, but at least, communication was easy going (usually).
It's a relatively recent phenomenon that maintainers go berzerk, foaming
at the mouth over forms, borders, colors, and various other mania! :-)

--
François Pinard http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca

[Paul Rubin]

"BartlebyScrivener" <rp*******@gmail.com> writes:

The solution is clear: the distro maintainers should require that all

code contributions must come with good docs.
Well, that might be asking a bit too much of the programmers, who
perhaps don't exactly enjoy mucking about in the lowlands of English
grammar and syntax.

I've generally found good coders are also good writers, despite the
stereotype of the uncommunicative geek. Some coders don't like
documenting because it's less exciting than writing code, but that
doesn't mean they're incapable of it. After a while you learn to just
slog it out.

Docs written by non-native English speakers generally need to be
cleaned up before publication, but that's no big deal.
All I was saying is you should court writers and mid-level
programmers with writing skills (not saying I'M mid-level, I'm still
learning) to HELP with creating good documentation. When a writer
thinks about helping they go to a page where they are greeted by a
bug report menu or CSV notices or some such.
I just don't know to what extent a program like Python can really
benefit from docs written by non-experts in the thing being
documented. Of course there are other types of programs, like some
desktop applications, which can be documented by non-experts.
That's why most of your really good stuff for beginners is on
separately created web pages, where writers simply take matters into
their own hands. Also fine, not saying it should be different.
I don't know about this.
Again, taking something like Bengt Richter's suggestion as just one
example. To me the module docs are almost incomprehensible without good
examples. Why not have a button where people could submit nice SHORT
examples illustrating otherwise pure theoretical code and geek-speak.
Of course, the editors would decide in a survival-of-the-fittest
contest which example gets used, but the point is you'd get good free
examples this way.
PHP has a system sort of like that, where each library function has
its own doc page and anyone can submit comments and examples, sort
of like a blog. E.g.:

http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.metaphone.php

There's been some discussion of doing the same thing for Python, but
it hasn't been happening.

Generally, it seems to me, the parts of the docs that can be improved
much by easy additions like an example here and there, are already
usable with a little extra effort. The docs that need improvement the
most (because they're almost unusable as-is) need extensive additions
and rewrites that really have to to be done by experts.
In general, I'd be happy to help a programmer with writing if it meant
I would learn programming along the way. It should be that easy.

Maybe you'd enjoy going to a user group meeting and trying to find
people to collaborate with. Doing that kind of thing in person is
much more fun than doing it over the net.

[Ben Finney]

ru***@yahoo.com wrote:

If one is required to buy a book to use free software, it is not
really free, is it?

If one is required to buy a computer to use free software, is it free?

You should well know that cost and freedom are orthogonal.

--
\ "I got fired from my job the other day. They said my |
`\ personality was weird. ... That's okay, I have four more." -- |
_o__) Bug-Eyed Earl, _Red Meat_ |
Ben Finney

[Erik Max Francis]

Aahz wrote:

To use a Panix in-joke, how old are you, anyway?

I've been on the Net for more than fifteen years, and while this canard
about real names gets trotted out from time to time, it's quite clear
that many many people have been active on the Net *and* taken seriously
using names that aren't what you'd call a "real name".

The fact that it obviously isn't always true without exception doesn't
mean it's never true. Or did that not occur to you?

--
Erik Max Francis && ma*@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much.
-- Oscar Wilde

[Grant Edwards]

On 2005-12-06, Aahz <aa**@pythoncraft.com> wrote:

In article <11*************@corp.supernews.com>,
Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com> wrote:

Hmm, I though he explained it:

1) Not using your real name.

2) A yahoo, aol, or hotmail address.

In the ancient and hallowed (by net standards) history of
Usenet, both of these (particularly the first one) have been
pretty good predictors of crankness. The correlation isn't as
high as it used to be, now that hiding behind silly nicknames
has apparently become socially acceptable in other venues (web
"forums" and "boards" and whatnot).
To use a Panix in-joke, how old are you, anyway?

Hmm, let's see....

"Wasting Time on Usenet Since 1989"
I've been on the Net for more than fifteen years, and while
this canard about real names gets trotted out from time to
time, it's quite clear that many many people have been active
on the Net *and* taken seriously using names that aren't what
you'd call a "real name". (People named "piglet", "tigger",
and "pooh", just for example, who were active long before I
showed up. Not to mention "piranha".)

I didn't said it was 100% reliable, but in most of the
technical groups there sure seemed to be a good correlation
beetween "screen names" and kooks/trolls.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Uh-oh!! I'm having
at TOO MUCH FUN!!
visi.com

[skip]

Are you telling us you learned C#, smalltalk, lisp, C, perl,
whatever, from 1 website only, without looking at any books, without
spending any money on IDEs or any software? Cause that's what you're
asking here.

rurpy> For perl and C, yes, that's (close to) what I'm telling you.
rurpy> Perl I learned exclusively from the man pages, before WWW. I
rurpy> used it for 10 years before I ever bought a printed book. C I
rurpy> learned exclusively from the K&R book.

That's about the same for me, except Perl never "stuck".

rurpy> I tried to learn Python from the "official" docs but found it
rurpy> impossible.

I did as well, though the docs as they existed in 1993 or so (that is
pre-Lutz, pre-Beasley).
rurpy> I bought Beasley's book (I think this may have predated
rurpy> Martelli's book but I don't remember) which I thought quite good
rurpy> and which I still turn to before the Python docs in most cases.

Like other free software, you can choose to figure things out yourself (use
the source Luke) or pay someone to help you out. I'm not using this as an
excuse for poor Python docs.

rurpy> That's a very good list and I will save a copy, thanks. But what
rurpy> does it have to do with Python's documentation?

I'm sure you could find similar lists for Perl, C, Ruby, Tcl, Java, C++, C#,
etc. Does that mean their documentation stinks? Maybe. Maybe not. It
just means a lot of people have somewhat different ways of tackling the same
problem.

Skip

[gene tani]

sk**@pobox.com wrote:

Are you telling us you learned C#, smalltalk, lisp, C, perl,
>> whatever, from 1 website only, without looking at any books, without
>> spending any money on IDEs or any software? Cause that's what you're
>> asking here.

rurpy> For perl and C, yes, that's (close to) what I'm telling you.
rurpy> Perl I learned exclusively from the man pages, before WWW. I
rurpy> used it for 10 years before I ever bought a printed book. C I
rurpy> learned exclusively from the K&R book.

That's about the same for me, except Perl never "stuck".

rurpy> I tried to learn Python from the "official" docs but found it
rurpy> impossible.

I did as well, though the docs as they existed in 1993 or so (that is
pre-Lutz, pre-Beasley).
rurpy> I bought Beasley's book (I think this may have predated
rurpy> Martelli's book but I don't remember) which I thought quite good
rurpy> and which I still turn to before the Python docs in most cases.

Like other free software, you can choose to figure things out yourself (use
the source Luke) or pay someone to help you out. I'm not using this as an
excuse for poor Python docs.

rurpy> That's a very good list and I will save a copy, thanks. But what
rurpy> does it have to do with Python's documentation?

I'm sure you could find similar lists for Perl, C, Ruby, Tcl, Java, C++, C#,
etc. Does that mean their documentation stinks? Maybe. Maybe not. It
just means a lot of people have somewhat different ways of tackling the same
problem.

Skip

Skip: good points

orig qvetcher: Well, I won't have time til, maybe early 2007 to debate
the meaning of "free software","official docs", is buying K&R buying a
book? In the meantime, use the resources, Luke (i think i've been on
usenet too long... signing out)

[A.M. Kuchling]

On 5 Dec 2005 14:10:00 -0800,
ru***@yahoo.com <ru***@yahoo.com> wrote:

Well, I was running Python-2.4.1 so I upgraded to 2.4.2 and guess
what? The docs still reference the old Howto. Perhaps you meant
to say "will be fixed in 2.5" rather than "has been fixed"?

The docs reference the sorting howto? Can someone please tell me
where so that I can check that the URL is correct? (grep doesn't turn
it up, so I suspect you're talking about something other than the
Python documentation.)

--amk

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:56:50 GMT,
Bengt Richter <bo**@oz.net> wrote:

A little more effort could present the referrer page with clickable
paragraphs and other elements, to zoom in to what the commenter
wants to comment on. And an automatic diff could be prepared for
editors, and the submitted info could go in a structured file for
automated secure web access by editors to ease review and presumably
sometimes pretty automatic docs update. Adherence to submission
guidelines could be enforced somewhat by form checks etc.

"A *little* more effort"? This is obviously some strange new
definition of "little". I'd love to see such a system, but it would
be a significant effort to build such a system, and the Python
developers do not have the spare manpower to do it. It would be a
great volunteer project for someone to undertake, but I don't think
Fred Drake or anyone else has the spare CPU cycles to work on it.

--amk

[skip]

Hmm, I though he explained it:

1) Not using your real name.

2) A yahoo, aol, or hotmail address.

In the ancient and hallowed (by net standards) history of Usenet, both
of these (particularly the first one) have been pretty good predictors
of crankness.

aahz> I've been on the Net for more than fifteen years, and while this
aahz> canard about real names gets trotted out from time to time, it's
aahz> quite clear that many many people have been active on the Net
aahz> *and* taken seriously using names that aren't what you'd call a
aahz> "real name".

As the person who raised this particular flag, I will note a few things:

1. Monty Python humor aside, this is generally a serious mailing list
and newsgroup. In my experience, most people deal professionally
with others of like interests by using their real names.

2. While I haven't been to many PyCons, I've been to enough to have met
many Python folk. Hell, maybe I've met rurpy and don't even know it.
Real people have real names. Using your real name on the net makes
you less virtual to the people you communicate with.

3. I'm an Internet dinosaur. I date from the time before l33t speak,
the Morris worm, spam and Windows increased the need for people to
hide behind virtual masks and throw away email addresses every few
months. At the dawn of time, basically everyone used their real
names.

It's probably just my misunderstanding about how people use avatars on the
net nowadays, but I still expect professional people to communicate
profesionally. That includes using real names.

For completeness, though I usually don't here, my full sig:

--
Skip Montanaro
Katrina Benefit Concerts: http://www.musi-cal.com/katrina
sk**@pobox.com

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 00:05:38 -0500,
François Pinard <pi****@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

It's a relatively recent phenomenon that maintainers go berzerk, foaming
at the mouth over forms, borders, colors, and various other mania! :-)

It's largely to ensure that the ideas aren't lost. E-mail sits around
in an inbox until it gets deliberately deleted or gets lost in a disk
crash or system upgrade gone wrong. Usenet posts fall out of the news
spool and get buried in Google's archives.

For example, here are the oldest messages in my mailbox:

1 Mar 24 Whitesell, Ken (3.5K) [PyCON-Organizers] Feedback from a first-
2 Mar 28 Martin Maney (1.4K) Improving "The Python DB-API interface"
3 T Mar 28 MW Mike Weiner (1.0K) RE: [Pycon2005-attendees] Found items
4 + Mar 28 Mark Wittner (0.8K) *¬>
5 + Mar 29 Anna Ravenscrof (0.9K) >
6 s+ Mar 28 David Goodger (1.4K) Re: Q. about Emacs on MacOS
7 + Apr 04 Neal Norwitz (250K) Re: PyCon treasury question
8 Apr 28 Thorsten Leemhu (0.7K) python-crypto RIPEMD160 and SHA256 not 64
9 + May 01 nemir nemiria (0.4K) regular expression how-to suggestion.
10 May 07 Brian Hook (0.3K) pycrypto
11 May 23 John Lambert (W (3.7K) python howto: regular expressions - issue
12 T Jun 01 Tim Parkin (2.5K) pydotorg redesign
13 T Jun 02 Neal Norwitz (2.3K) Re: [Python-Dev] Vestigial code in thread
14 + Jun 09 Jacob Rus (0.5K) python regular expression howto
15 Jun 17 Zed Lopez (0.5K) [pct] decrypting a ciphertext with an RSA
16 Jun 21 Skip Montanaro (1.3K) Re: [Pydotorg] Python Homepage: possible
17 Jun 27 Osvaldo Santana (0.7K) [marketing-python] Python Powered in Core
18 + Jul 09 Martin Kirst (0.3K) pycrypto pre build binaries for windows,
19 Jul 10 Jeff Rush (0.9K) [PyCON-Organizers] Two Good Developments
20 Jul 13 ms*@oz.net (2.5K) Re: [Quixote-users] Quixote 2 Docs
21 T Jul 15 Nick Jacobson (0.4K) py3k

#2 from Martin Maney is a suggestion about a web page I have on the DB-API.
#8 is a pycrypto bug report; I think the bug is fixed now, but would have
to check.
#9 and #11 are suggestions for the regex HOWTO.
#10, #15, #18 could be suggestions, bug reports, or questions; hope
they're not questions or bugs, because the chance of them being
answered is zero at this point.

You may suggest that I should process my e-mail more promptly. True,
but that's very hard; there's always newer e-mail coming in. Do less?
I'd love to, but that doesn't seem to be a viable option.

I could just delete all this mail, but I still have the hope of
someday doing a rewrite pass on, say, the regex howto, going through
all the suggestions and making some changes accordingly. I am,
however, drifting toward the Linus Torvalds approach of mail handling:
delete messages after six months. If the message was important,
they'll resend it. A pity that it means Martin's suggestions, and
Thorsten's bug, and Nemir's suggestion, get discarded.

This is why things need to go into public trackers, or wiki pages.
There, at least their content is available to someone else; if
someday, someone else does a new regex howto, they could use the
suggestions and patches that have accumulated over time.

--amk

[Aahz]

In article <11*************@corp.supernews.com>,
Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com> wrote:

On 2005-12-06, Aahz <aa**@pythoncraft.com> wrote:

In article <11*************@corp.supernews.com>,
Grant Edwards <gr****@visi.com> wrote:

Hmm, I though he explained it:

1) Not using your real name.

2) A yahoo, aol, or hotmail address.

In the ancient and hallowed (by net standards) history of Usenet,
both of these (particularly the first one) have been pretty good
predictors of crankness. The correlation isn't as high as it used
to be, now that hiding behind silly nicknames has apparently become
socially acceptable in other venues (web "forums" and "boards" and
whatnot).

I've been on the Net for more than fifteen years, and while this
canard about real names gets trotted out from time to time, it's
quite clear that many many people have been active on the Net *and*
taken seriously using names that aren't what you'd call a "real
name". (People named "piglet", "tigger", and "pooh", just for
example, who were active long before I showed up. Not to mention
"piranha".)

I didn't said it was 100% reliable, but in most of the technical groups
there sure seemed to be a good correlation beetween "screen names" and
kooks/trolls.

My point is that I do not think the correlation has changed
significantly over the last fifteen years that I've been observing.
There is still a moderate correlation between screen names and trollish
behavior (just as there was historically); there is still a high enough
chance that people are using a screen name for reasons that have nothing
to do with trollishness that it should never be used as a primary reason
for selecting or rejecting posts from a person (just as it always was
historically). For that matter, I have no evidence that your name is
Grant Edwards. If I really cared, I could find people I know in
Minneapolis to look you up...

IOW, it just makes sense to me to skip the whole name issue and simply
respond to people's posts (for some strange reason, I have a vested
interest ;-).
--
Aahz (aa**@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Don't listen to schmucks on USENET when making legal decisions. Hire
yourself a competent schmuck." --USENET schmuck (aka Robert Kern)

[François Pinard]

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 00:05:38 -0500,
François Pinard <pi****@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

It's a relatively recent phenomenon that maintainers go berzerk, foaming
at the mouth over forms, borders, colors, and various other mania! :-)

It's largely to ensure that the ideas aren't lost. E-mail sits around
in an inbox until it gets deliberately deleted or gets lost in a disk
crash or system upgrade gone wrong.
Or sorted properly by the recipient, the way he sees best fit, in the
tracker of his own choice.

I know I'm repeating myself, but my point just does not seem to get
through. The maintainer should manage his way as a grown up, instead of
expecting the world to learn his ways and manage in his place.
You may suggest that I should process my e-mail more promptly.
No, I'm not suggesting you how to work, no more that I would accept that
you force me into working your way. If any of us wants to force the
other to speak through robots, that one is not far from unspeakable...
If the message was important, they'll resend it.
This is despising contributions. If someone sends me a message which
I find important, I do take means so that message does not get lost, and
that it will even suvive me for some while.
This is why things need to go into public trackers, or wiki pages.

Whatever means the maintainer wants to fill his preservation needs, he
is free to use them. The problem arises when the maintainer wants
imposing his own work methods on others. Let contributors be merely
contributors, and learn how to recognise contributions as such and say
thank you, instead of trying to turn contributors into maintainers.

--
François Pinard http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca

[Paul Rubin]

François Pinard <pi****@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

You may suggest that I should process my e-mail more promptly.

No, I'm not suggesting you how to work, no more that I would accept
that you force me into working your way. If any of us wants to force
the other to speak through robots, that one is not far from
unspeakable...

In the old days, it was possible to post stuff to Python's sourceforge
pages without logging in. That was turned off for various reasons
that weren't bogus, but that didn't strike me as overwhelmingly
compelling. Maybe that could be revisited, at least for the category
of documentation bugs and patches.

[Steve Holden]

François Pinard wrote:

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 00:05:38 -0500,
François Pinard <pi****@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

It's a relatively recent phenomenon that maintainers go berzerk, foaming
at the mouth over forms, borders, colors, and various other mania! :-)

It's largely to ensure that the ideas aren't lost. E-mail sits around
in an inbox until it gets deliberately deleted or gets lost in a disk
crash or system upgrade gone wrong.

Or sorted properly by the recipient, the way he sees best fit, in the
tracker of his own choice.

I know I'm repeating myself, but my point just does not seem to get
through. The maintainer should manage his way as a grown up, instead of
expecting the world to learn his ways and manage in his place.

You may suggest that I should process my e-mail more promptly.

No, I'm not suggesting you how to work, no more that I would accept that
you force me into working your way. If any of us wants to force the
other to speak through robots, that one is not far from unspeakable...

If the message was important, they'll resend it.

This is despising contributions. If someone sends me a message which
I find important, I do take means so that message does not get lost, and
that it will even suvive me for some while.

This is why things need to go into public trackers, or wiki pages.

Whatever means the maintainer wants to fill his preservation needs, he
is free to use them. The problem arises when the maintainer wants
imposing his own work methods on others. Let contributors be merely
contributors, and learn how to recognise contributions as such and say
thank you, instead of trying to turn contributors into maintainers.

François, you talk of "the maintainer" as though each piece of code is
owned by a single individual. In Python's case this is far from the truth.

So, what you say *seems* to equate to "If there's a problem with Python
that I think should be fixed, I should be able to mail the person I
suspect is most likely to maintain that code, and they should be obliged
to log the bug or enhancement request in the tracking system".

There's also a philosophical question here about who is helping who. One
might choose to believe that the contributor is assisting the developer,
by pointing out a defect in the developer's code. One might
alternatively regard the contributor as a supplicant, who needs the
assistance of the developer to get a problem fixed. Finally one might
regard the contributor (who benefits from having Python available) and
the developer (who gets the kudos of having developed something "cool")
to be members of a community, prepared to collaborate to achieve
something that benefits them both.

In the real world people's opinions will have all kinds of other shades
as well, of course, but as far as *I'm* concerned, if the developers say
"please contribute bug reports through Sourceforge" then I am happy to
do so to make sure they don't fall between the cracks and get lost. YMMV.

Obviously the developers are in charge here, but I really don't see how
putting more load on them by requiring them to collectively be the only
sources of bug input to the tracking system will help get more work out
of them.

If you wanted to build a better tracking system than the one on
SourceForge I could certainly support that, but historically there
hasn't been much volunteer effort available to switch to something like
Roundup which might be preferred.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:36:58 -0800, BartlebyScrivener wrote:

Well, that might be asking a bit too much of the programmers, who
perhaps don't exactly enjoy mucking about in the lowlands of English
grammar and syntax.

Oh come on now! For the kinds of minds who enjoy obfuscated C or Perl,
English is just par for the course.

One of my favourite examples of obfuscated English is this grammatically
correct sentence:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

And they say English is a hard language to understand :-)

On the other hand, for programmers who don't like obfuscated anything,
English can be as precise and elegant as anything in Lisp or Python. Treat
English as a programming language: learn the rules of syntax and grammar,
and read examples of master writers to learn the best idioms, and you
can't go wrong.

But if you try to learn English from Usenet... *shudders*
--
Steven.

[Fredrik Lundh]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Did you mean: Badger badger Badger badger badger badger Badger badger Mushroom! Mushroom!

</F>

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:05:46 -0800, rurpy wrote:

If one is required to buy a book to use free software,
One is *not* required to buy a book to use free software. It isn't
compulsory.
it is not really free, is it?

What part of "you may use this FREE software for FREE" is too difficult
for you to understand?

If you want to calculate the total cost of ownership for (say) using
Python, then by all means include the cost of labour, electricity to run
your computer, depreciation on that computer, courses to learn how to
program, etc. All these are valid costs.

But none of them are the cost of Python, which is free. It really isn't a
scam, nobody is going to come knocking at your door with a surprise bill
for using Python.

--
Steven.

[skip]

This is why things need to go into public trackers, or wiki pages.

François> Whatever means the maintainer wants to fill his preservation
François> needs, he is free to use them. The problem arises whenthe
François> maintainer wants imposing his own work methods on others.

François, that's not it at all. It's not our fault that SF doesn't support
email-based tracker interaction. It's our fault that we chose SF, but it
was the best overall choice at the time (there were more considerationsthan
just bug tracking) and now we're sort of stuck with it because for a number
of reasons we've been unable to move away from it.

Here's the scenario we have to use today to collect emailed requests and put
them in SF:

* Kind user notices a problem and posts a message somewhere, maybe to c..l.py
or to another Python-related list or by direct email to a developer.

* Someone - maybe nobody, but maybe more than one person - notices the
request and thinks, "better add that to SF so it doesn't get lost".

* That person visits SF and submits a ticket.

Now, consider some of the problems this scheme is fraught with:

* Maybe nobody notices it at all. It might have been buried deep in another
thread that no Python developer happened to read in its entirety. Bummer.
It's been lost until the next time someone notices and posts a similar
request.

* Maybe more than one person notices. Bummer. Now we have duplicates.
Worse yet, some might have been posted as feature requests, some as bug
reports. It also may not be obvious that they are duplicate without
careful checking.

* The multiple reports might contain different useful perspectives on the
problem. Bummer. SF doesn't allow you to easily merge two requests.You
have to manually transfer the information from one to the other and close
the one.

* Maybe the original post generates further responses in that venue that
would have been useful to have with the original report. Most will
probably never find their way to the tracker. Bummer. They got lost..

* Maybe the original requester's email gets missed in the process (or the
problem isn't addressed immediately and the user has discarded the
original address because it's spammed so heavily and moved on to a new
one) and the Python developers need more info but they can't contact the
requester. Bummer. The problem isn't adequately addressed.

* Finally, instead of one person spending a couple minutes submitting a
report, several people will have spent their volunteer time, and there's a
good chance that the report is not any better (perhaps even worse) than if
the original requester had simply submitted the request directly to SF.

I know, we have to take these steps occasion. When bug reports have tobe
moved from another tracker to the Python tracker some of these issues arise.
We've incorportated bug reports from the Debian bug tracker that way and
have migrated python-mode requests from the Python project to the
python-mode project (both on SF). It can be a pain.

The Python developers are not being lazy. I would love it if there wasan
email interaction mode with the SF trackers, but there isn't. I'll repeat
what I wrote yesterday in response to an earlier message in this thread:

I wish either a) SourceForge supported email interaction with their
trackers or b) someone would finish off the Roundup issue tracker
<http://roundup.sourceforge.net/> for python.org. I doubt if anyone
here can do anything about the first barrier, but if you know something
about Roundup (or would like to learn about it) and would like to
contribute something non-documentational that would really have a
direct, positive impact on the Python community, send a note to
we*******@python.org.

Skip

[Simon Brunning]

On 12/7/05, Steven D'Aprano <st***@removethiscyber.com.au> wrote:

But none of them are the cost of Python, which is free. It really isn't a
scam, nobody is going to come knocking at your door with a surprise bill
for using Python.

Well, there is the PSU's "Spanish Inquisition" division. Last week
they barged into my office, quite unexpectedly, armed with cushions
and

[Fredrik Lundh]

sk**@pobox.com wrote:

Real people have real names. Using your real name on the net makes
you less virtual to the people you communicate with.

on the other hand,

http://www.python.org/doc/Humor.html#timbot2

</F>

[Jon Perez]

Tony Meyer wrote:

This makes no sense. If you want to complain about Python, try a
Perl list. Why would a list dedicated to discussion about/help with
a language need complaints about the language?
Huh?!? Usually people complain because they need help or feel
that things can be improved.
You might want to consider the difference between complaining and
constructive criticism and suggestions, and which are likely to get
better responses.

In the case of programming languages, I don't see any real difference
between something being a 'constructive criticism' and a 'complaint'.

Why, oh why, do so many programmers insist on elevating software tools
they are using to the status of a *religion* such that they feel personally
offended when someone badmouths the language or tool they are using???

Anyone can badmouth Python and things associated with all they want, the
only time it would even begin to bother me is only if these were false
accusations or there is a dishonest agenda behind it.

If the complaints are untrue, then I'd just be laughing at others'
ignorance, not be offended by it. If it is an honest complaint
arising out of personal experience with the language, then certainly
there is a need to examine what can be improved.

I generally don't see any need to feel uncomfortable with strident
whining against Python because the only thing being attacked here is a
software tool, not persons.

[Christopher Subich]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Did you mean: Badger badger Badger badger badger badger Badger badger Mushroom! Mushroom!

Thank you, I really needed that stuck in my head. :)

[Grant Edwards]

On 2005-12-07, Steven D'Aprano <st***@REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:36:58 -0800, BartlebyScrivener wrote:

Well, that might be asking a bit too much of the programmers, who
perhaps don't exactly enjoy mucking about in the lowlands of English
grammar and syntax.

Oh come on now! For the kinds of minds who enjoy obfuscated C or Perl,
English is just par for the course.

One of my favourite examples of obfuscated English is this grammatically
correct sentence:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Why the goofy-looking capitalization? Are the 2nd and 3rd
occurances of "Buffalo" referring to the city?

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! All of life is a blur
at of Republicans and meat!
visi.com

[Alex Martelli]

Steven D'Aprano <st***@REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:36:58 -0800, BartlebyScrivener wrote:

Well, that might be asking a bit too much of the programmers, who
perhaps don't exactly enjoy mucking about in the lowlands of English
grammar and syntax.

Oh come on now! For the kinds of minds who enjoy obfuscated C or Perl,
English is just par for the course.

As it happens, there appears to be pretty weak correlation between
proficiency in programming and proficiency in writing -- SOME excellent
programmers are great writers too, but, I would guess, just roughly the
same percentage as in the general popularion (i.e., deucedly few).
Alex

[Jon Perez]

ru***@yahoo.com wrote:

FWIW I find Python's docs to be OK at best, with some horrible
parts, and a lot of mediochre to poor parts.

I myself have no big beef about Python's docs, but you're certainly
not the first one to complain about them. Xah Lee rants very
heavily against the quality against Python's docs and considers
many sections of it as written in a manner more to show-off one's
knowledge of jargon rather than to explain things properly.

I don't really notice that but this could be because I'm already
quite comfortable with jargon at the level it is used in the
Python docs (or maybe I'm one of those highfalutin' chaps as well
;-D). Seriously though, sometimes jargon is necessary in order to
put across a point concisely and accurately so its use cannot always
be considered gratuitous.

The only problem I have with Python docs is that for most of
the the standard library API documentation, the function calls
are not organized very well (i.e. I don't believe they are
alphabetized or ordered in any intutive manner).

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 07:50:14 -0800, Alex Martelli wrote:

Steven D'Aprano <st***@REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:36:58 -0800, BartlebyScrivener wrote:

> Well, that might be asking a bit too much of the programmers, who
> perhaps don't exactly enjoy mucking about in the lowlands of English
> grammar and syntax.

Oh come on now! For the kinds of minds who enjoy obfuscated C or Perl,
English is just par for the course.

As it happens, there appears to be pretty weak correlation between
proficiency in programming and proficiency in writing -- SOME excellent
programmers are great writers too, but, I would guess, just roughly the
same percentage as in the general popularion (i.e., deucedly few).

If you know any links to real research on this, I'd love to learn more.
I'm always amazed and perplexed at how hot-shot programmers who would
never forget a colon or a brace can be so slap-dash about using proper
punctuation and grammar in English.
--
Steven.

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 15:29:07 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2005-12-07, Steven D'Aprano <st***@REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:36:58 -0800, BartlebyScrivener wrote:

Well, that might be asking a bit too much of the programmers, who
perhaps don't exactly enjoy mucking about in the lowlands of English
grammar and syntax.

Oh come on now! For the kinds of minds who enjoy obfuscated C or Perl,
English is just par for the course.

One of my favourite examples of obfuscated English is this grammatically
correct sentence:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Why the goofy-looking capitalization? Are the 2nd and 3rd
occurances of "Buffalo" referring to the city?

The punctuation is important. Yes, they refer to the city.

(Which reminds me of the old joke about capitalisation being the
difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "I helped my
Uncle jack off a horse".)

For those who don't know, "buffalo" is also a verb meaning to overwhelm
or intimidate.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Buffalo from the city of Buffalo, which are intimidated by buffalo
from Buffalo, also intimidate buffalo from Buffalo.
I didn't say it was *good* English, but it is *legal* English.

--
Steven.

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 11:45:04 +0100, Fredrik Lundh wrote:

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Did you mean: Badger badger Badger badger badger badger Badger badger Mushroom! Mushroom!

Er... no, I can't parse that. I suffered a Too Much Recursion error about
the third Badger (I only have a limited runtime stack).

I asked my missus about this one, she being much better at English grammar
than I am, and she thinks the badger/mushroom sentence is a wind-up. Is
she right?
--
Steven.

[Christopher Subich]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Buffalo from the city of Buffalo, which are intimidated by buffalo
from Buffalo, also intimidate buffalo from Buffalo.
And to do a small simplification on it, to illustrate just how painful
that sentence really is, the semantically equivalent version:

N = buffalo from Buffalo

(N [that] N buffalo) buffalo N.

The dropping of the [that] is legal, if sometimes ambiguous, in English.
I didn't say it was *good* English, but it is *legal* English.

Which is why natural language programming's never going to take off. :)

[Fredrik Lundh]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

Buffalo from the city of Buffalo, which are intimidated by buffalo
from Buffalo, also intimidate buffalo from Buffalo.

Did you mean: Bagder from the city of Badger, who is pestered by
a badger from Badger, also pesters badger from Badger. Mushroom
expands rapidly!

(Argh! Snake!)

</F>

[Christopher Subich]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 11:45:04 +0100, Fredrik Lundh wrote:

Did you mean: Badger badger Badger badger badger badger Badger badger Mushroom! Mushroom!

Er... no, I can't parse that. I suffered a Too Much Recursion error about
the third Badger (I only have a limited runtime stack).

http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

And now back to your regularly scheduled newsgroup, already in progress.

[Fredrik Lundh]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

Did you mean: Badger badger Badger badger badger badger Badger badger Mushroom! Mushroom!

Er... no, I can't parse that. I suffered a Too Much Recursion error about
the third Badger (I only have a limited runtime stack).

I asked my missus about this one, she being much better at English grammar
than I am, and she thinks the badger/mushroom sentence is a wind-up. Is
she right?

http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/ (make sure your speakers are on)

</F>

[Rocco Moretti]

One of my favourite examples of obfuscated English is this grammatically
correct sentence:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

The punctuation is important.

Reminds me of this old classic:

Insert punctuation & capitalization to make the following a correct and
coherent (if not a little tourtured).

fred where guido had had had had had had had had had had had a better
effect on the reader

[skip]

Steven> I'm always amazed and perplexed at how hot-shot programmers who
Steven> would never forget a colon or a brace can be so slap-dash about
Steven> using proper punctuation and grammar in English.

That's because there's no equivalent to a compiler or interpreter preventing
them from speaking or writing.

Skip

[Fredrik Lundh]

Rocco Moretti wrote:

Insert punctuation & capitalization to make the following a correct and
coherent (if not a little tourtured).

fred where guido had had had had had had had had had had had a better
effect on the reader

punctuation, including quote marks, I presume?

it's not time to bring out "d'ä ä e å, å i åa ä e ö" yet, I hope?

</F>

[Aahz]

In article <dn**********@news.doit.wisc.edu>,
Rocco Moretti <ro**********@hotpop.com> wrote:

Reminds me of this old classic:

Insert punctuation & capitalization to make the following a correct and
coherent (if not a little tourtured).

fred where guido had had had had had had had had had had had a better
effect on the reader

"I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God."
--
Aahz (aa**@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Don't listen to schmucks on USENET when making legal decisions. Hire
yourself a competent schmuck." --USENET schmuck (aka Robert Kern)

[Michael Spencer]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:

Rocco Moretti wrote:

Insert punctuation & capitalization to make the following a correct and
coherent (if not a little tourtured).

fred where guido had had had had had had had had had had had a better
effect on the reader

punctuation, including quote marks, I presume?

it's not time to bring out "d'ä ä e å, å i åa ä e ö" yet, I hope?

</F>

Allowing quotation, almost anything is possible, e.g.,
Fred! Where Guido had had "had", Had had had "had had". "Had had" had a better
effect on the reader

or simply

"fred", where Guido had "had had had had had had had had had", had a better
effect on the reader

M

[Mike Meyer]

"Fredrik Lundh" <fr*****@pythonware.com> writes:

Er... no, I can't parse that. I suffered a Too Much Recursion error about
the third Badger (I only have a limited runtime stack).

I always loved the demonstration that English requires backtracking:
"The old man the ship."

<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mw*@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 17:15:03 -0500, Mike Meyer wrote:

"Fredrik Lundh" <fr*****@pythonware.com> writes:

Er... no, I can't parse that. I suffered a Too Much Recursion error about
the third Badger (I only have a limited runtime stack).

I always loved the demonstration that English requires backtracking:
"The old man the ship."

Linguists call that "garden path sentences", because they lead the
reader/listener up the garden path.

Here are some more examples:

The horse raced past the barn fell.

The man who hunts ducks out on weekends.

The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi.

The prime number few.

Fat people eat accumulates.

The tycoon sold the offshore oil tracts for a lot of money wanted to kill
JR.

--
Steven.

[Dan Sommers]

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 12:19:13 +1100,
Steven D'Aprano <st***@REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:

Linguists call that "garden path sentences", because they lead the
reader/listener up the garden path. Here are some more examples:

[ examples snipped ]

And the ever-popular, ever-ambiguous:

Women can fish.

Regards,
Dan

--
Dan Sommers
<http://www.tombstonezero.net/dan/>

[Steve Holden]

Michael Spencer wrote:
[...]

Allowing quotation, almost anything is possible, e.g.,
Fred! Where Guido had had "had", Had had had "had had". "Had had" had a better
effect on the reader

or simply

"fred", where Guido had "had had had had had had had had had", had a better
effect on the reader

M

All this remind me about the Member of Parliament who was required to
apologise for calling one of his opposite numbers a liar. He did so by
reading out the statement

"I called the Honorable member a liar it is true and I am sorry for it",
adding that the Honorable member could insert the punctuation wherever
he so chose.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden [phone] [phone]
Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com
PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/

[Rocco Moretti]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:

Rocco Moretti wrote:

Insert punctuation & capitalization to make the following a correct and
coherent (if not a little tourtured).

fred where guido had had had had had had had had had had had a better
effect on the reader

punctuation, including quote marks, I presume?

Quote marks are acceptable, but no more than two words are inside each set.
B
A
D
G
E
R

..
..
..

E
R
S
P
O
I
L
E
R

W
A
R
N
I
N
G

The "accepted" way to do it is:

Fred, where Guido had had "had", had had "had had." "Had had" had had a
better effect on the reader.

meaning approximately

In the place where Guido previously put the word "had", Fred had
previously put the phrase "had had." Fred's choice of phrasing was more
appreciated by the reder.

[Dave Hansen]

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 12:33:07 -0600 in comp.lang.python, Rocco Moretti
<ro**********@hotpop.com> wrote:

[...]

fred where guido had had had had had had had had had had had a better
effect on the reader

I've seen this before as

bill had had had but will had had had had had had or had had been
correct had had had

Regards,
-=Dave

--
Change is inevitable, progress is not.

[Sion Arrowsmith]

Steven D'Aprano <st***@REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

(Good grief, I've not done that in *years*.)
Buffalo from the city of Buffalo, which are intimidated by buffalo
from Buffalo, also intimidate buffalo from Buffalo.

I didn't say it was *good* English, but it is *legal* English.

I *think* that's similar to the one I know about the cannibalistic
behaviour of some oysters, which split open other oysters (to eat
them). It starts:

"Oysters oysters split split."

Oysters which oysters split become split.

But there's nothing to stop a third set of oysters predating on the
ones doing the splitting:

"Oysters oysters oysters split split split."

And so on. My brain hurts too much to work out if you can do the
same to the buffaloes.

And here endeth today's lesson in recursion.

--
\S -- si***@chiark.greenend.org.uk -- http://www.chaos.org.uk/~sion/
___ | "Frankly I have no feelings towards penguins one way or the other"
\X/ | -- Arthur C. Clarke
her nu becomeþ se bera eadward ofdun hlæddre heafdes bæce bump bump bump

[Neil Schemenauer]

François Pinard <pi****@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

[AMK]

You may suggest that I should process my e-mail more promptly.

No, I'm not suggesting you how to work, no more that I would accept that
you force me into working your way. If any of us wants to force the
other to speak through robots, that one is not far from unspeakable...

This is why things need to go into public trackers, or wiki pages.

Whatever means the maintainer wants to fill his preservation needs, he
is free to use them. The problem arises when the maintainer wants
imposing his own work methods on others. Let contributors be merely
contributors, and learn how to recognise contributions as such and say
thank you, instead of trying to turn contributors into maintainers.

Either I don't understand what you are saying or you are being a
hypocrite. Andrew is saying that he doesn't have time to detail
with all the messages that get sent to him personally. What do you
propose he should do? I think people expect more that a message
saying "Thanks for you contribution. PS: Since I don't have time to
do anything with it, your message will now be discarded.".

Neil

[BartlebyScrivener]

The actress Margaret Anglin left this note in the dressing froom of
another actress:

'Margaret Anglin says Mrs. Fiske is the best actress in America.'

Mrs. Fiske added two commas and returned the note: 'Margaret Anglin,
says Mrs. Fiske, is the best actress in America.'

Or this, from a George Will column:

Huge doctrinal consequences flow from the placing of a comma in what
Jesus, when on the cross, said to the thief (Luke 23:43): 'Verily, I
say unto thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise' or 'Verily,
I say unto thee this day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.' The
former leaves little room for purgatory.