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Teaching python to non-programmers

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  Teaching python to non-programmers Lalitha Prasad K <lalithaprasad@gmail.com> - 2014-04-10 21:24 +0530
    Re: Teaching python to non-programmers pete.bee.emm@gmail.com - 2014-04-10 10:53 -0700
      Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-04-10 19:36 +0100
        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers pete.bee.emm@gmail.com - 2014-04-10 13:52 -0700
          Re: Teaching python to non-programmers "Rhodri James" <rhodri@wildebst.org.uk> - 2014-04-10 23:40 +0100
            Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-04-10 20:17 -0700
              Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 13:59 +1000
                Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-04-10 21:37 -0700
                  Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 15:11 +1000
                    Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Paul Rudin <paul.nospam@rudin.co.uk> - 2014-04-11 06:34 +0100
                      Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 15:42 +1000
                      Re: Teaching python to non-programmers alister <alister.nospam.ware@ntlworld.com> - 2014-04-11 10:46 +0000
                        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 21:01 +1000
                          Re: Teaching python to non-programmers alister <alister.nospam.ware@ntlworld.com> - 2014-04-11 11:48 +0000
                    Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-04-10 22:42 -0700
                      Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-04-10 22:54 -0700
                        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 16:01 +1000
                        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-04-11 11:36 +0000
                      Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 16:00 +1000
                      Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-04-11 11:34 +0000
                        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Paul Rudin <paul.nospam@rudin.co.uk> - 2014-04-11 12:46 +0100
                          Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-04-11 11:59 +0000
                        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2014-04-11 07:39 -0500
                        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 22:50 +1000
                        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 11:19 -0700
                          Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-04-12 01:45 +0000
                      Re: Teaching python to non-programmers alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2014-04-14 16:13 +1000
                        Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2014-04-14 00:59 -0600
                  Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2014-04-10 23:39 -0600
                    Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-04-11 10:07 +0000
                      Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 20:17 +1000
                  Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 15:54 +1000
                  Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-04-11 09:37 +0000
                Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-04-11 07:09 +0000
                  Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 17:19 +1000
              Re: Interleaved vs. top-posting Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2014-04-11 07:44 -0500
                Re: Interleaved vs. top-posting Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> - 2014-04-12 07:28 +0100
            Ostracising bad actors (was: Teaching python to non-programmers) Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2014-04-11 13:28 +1000
            Re: Teaching python to non-programmers pete.bee.emm@gmail.com - 2014-04-11 13:20 -0700
              Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 17:50 -0700
              Re: Teaching python to non-programmers "Rhodri James" <rhodri@wildebst.org.uk> - 2014-04-13 23:51 +0100
                Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-04-14 00:54 +0100
                  Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-04-14 00:20 +0000
                    Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-04-14 08:32 +0100
          Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-04-11 14:43 +0100
          Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Mark H Harris <harrismh777@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 09:12 -0500
    Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2014-04-10 11:24 -0700
    Re: Teaching python to non-programmers Mark H Harris <harrismh777@gmail.com> - 2014-04-11 09:35 -0500

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#70125

Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> writes:

> On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 22:42:14 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:
>
>> In middle-eastern society women are expected to dress heavier than in
>> the West. A few years ago a girl went to school in France with a scarf
>> and she was penalized.
>
> Citation please. I think this is bogus...

This is not bogus. France has quite a strong tradition of keeping the
education system secular and has passed a law regarding the wearing of
"ostentatious" religious symbols in public schools, which also affects
things like the wearing of crosses.

Wikipedia has plenty on this...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_France>

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#70127

On Fri, 11 Apr 2014 12:46:05 +0100, Paul Rudin wrote:

> Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> writes:
> 
>> On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 22:42:14 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:
>>
>>> In middle-eastern society women are expected to dress heavier than in
>>> the West. A few years ago a girl went to school in France with a scarf
>>> and she was penalized.
>>
>> Citation please. I think this is bogus...
> 
> This is not bogus. France has quite a strong tradition of keeping the
> education system secular and has passed a law regarding the wearing of
> "ostentatious" religious symbols in public schools, which also affects
> things like the wearing of crosses.
> 
> Wikipedia has plenty on this...
> 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_France>


Which does not differ that much from the rest of my post, which you 
deleted. It wasn't just a scarf, it was a religious head-covering, the 
hijab, and despite the original context which suggests that the poor girl 
happened to turn up to school one day with a scarf and was penalized just 
for bringing it to school, the three girls were asked to remove their 
hijabs, and were only penalized when they refused to obey school rules.

I don't know where I stand on the hijab in general, but in this specific 
case, I stand by my skepticism about Rustom's description.



-- 
Steven D'Aprano
http://import-that.dreamwidth.org/

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#70130

On 2014-04-11 11:34, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> >> That's equivalent to being told "Don't ever delete any of your
> >> code, just comment it out". I don't care who's saying that, it's
> >> bad advice.  
> > 
> > The correct analogy: "Dont ever delete content from the
> > repository"  
> 
> No -- the repository is the email archive. (Your inbox, perhaps.)
> You don't keep a copy of the entire repo in every source file.

Clearly you've not seen some of the corporate code-bases I've had to
touch. «shudder»  I still have nightmares about vast swaths of code
commented out or "#ifdef 0"ed out.

Then again, since they used Visual Source Safe, it might have been
the smarter/safer option ;-)

-tkc

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#70135

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 10:39 PM, Tim Chase
<python.list@tim.thechases.com> wrote:
> On 2014-04-11 11:34, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> >> That's equivalent to being told "Don't ever delete any of your
>> >> code, just comment it out". I don't care who's saying that, it's
>> >> bad advice.
>> >
>> > The correct analogy: "Dont ever delete content from the
>> > repository"
>>
>> No -- the repository is the email archive. (Your inbox, perhaps.)
>> You don't keep a copy of the entire repo in every source file.
>
> Clearly you've not seen some of the corporate code-bases I've had to
> touch. «shudder»  I still have nightmares about vast swaths of code
> commented out or "#ifdef 0"ed out.
>
> Then again, since they used Visual Source Safe, it might have been
> the smarter/safer option ;-)

I think Steven was agreeing with me that it's bad advice, rather than
that it never happens... There's an expression on The Daily WTF:
"Enterprise happens". Covers this situation well, IMO.

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Enterprise-Dependency.aspx

ChrisA

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#70162

On Friday, April 11, 2014 5:04:28 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> I've been in plenty of mailing list forums where interleaved posting was
> required, but there's only so many times you can tell people off for
> being rude before you start coming across as rude yourself.

> It's one of those nasty aspects of human psychology: the guy who casually
> and without malice tosses litter out of his car window, spoiling things
> for everyone, is somehow considered less obnoxious than the person who
> tells him off. Except in Switzerland, where if you leave your rubbish bin
> out more than twenty minutes after its been emptied, the neighbours
> consider it perfectly acceptable to tell you off, never mind that you've
> been at work. And heaven help you if you take your discarded Christmas
> tree down to the street too early.

Yes this is correct: we make the world a worse place by choosing to
be 'nice guys' when some telling off would help. And I am remiss on this
matter since I dont post that python-google-groups link when I should.  [Can
never find the damn link when needed though I wrote half of it myself!]

For the rest, Im not sure that you need my help in making a fool of yourself...
Anyway since you are requesting said help, here goes:

> On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 22:42:14 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:
> 
> 
> > People whose familiarity with religion is limited to the Judeo-Christian
> > tradition are inclined to the view (usually implicit) that "being
> > religious" == "belief in God"
> > However there are religions where belief in God is irreligious --
> 
> > Jainism 
> 
> I think that it will come as rather a surprise to Jains to be told that 
> they don't believe in god. In fact, they believe in a multitude of gods 
> (not surprising, as Jainism is derived from Hinduism) and believe that 
> every soul has the potential to become a god. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Jainism
and particularly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Jainism#Heavenly_Beings


> > And others where it is is irrelevant -- Tao, Shinto. [There is
> > the story of a westerner who wen to a shinto temple and said: All this
> > (rites) is fine and beautiful but what's your *philosophy* To which he
> > was told: "Philosophy? We have no philosophy! We dance!"]
> 
> A nice story, but the name "Shinto" even means "The Way Of The Gods", so 
> claiming that Shinto is not about gods is rubbish.

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=b-VACc7jcOAC&lpg=PA159&ots=femTbp96rh&dq=shinto%20%22We%20have%20no%20philosophy%22%20we%20dance&pg=PA159#v=onepage&q=shinto%20%22We%20have%20no%20philosophy%22%20we%20dance&f=false


> > In middle-eastern society women are expected to dress heavier than in
> > the West. A few years ago a girl went to school in France with a scarf
> > and she was penalized.
> 
> Citation please. I think this is bogus, although given how obnoxious some 
> schools can be I'm not quite prepared to rule it out altogether. I think 
> it's far more likely that she was only penalized for wearing full head-
> covering (not just a scarf) after being warned that it was not part of 
> the school uniform and therefore not appropriate.

In spite of Paul pointing out the link (thanks Paul)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_France

you still persist in

> in this specific case, I stand by my skepticism

So you think that wikipedia link/article is bogus?



Anyway.. To come back to the point of those examples:

You are welcome to your view:

> I don't know that there is anyone here that thinks interleaved posting is
> the norm among the majority of email users. Nor is anyone saying that
> Usenet posters make up a majority of internet users. What we are saying
> is that *interleaved posting is objectively better* for most forms of
> email or news communication (although it is not a panacea), and
> especially for *technical discussions* like those that occur here.

All those examples were adduced only to say that like matters of dress and 
matters of God-belief are not absolute standards in any frame, in any sense,
so also mail etiquette.

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#70173

On Fri, 11 Apr 2014 11:19:22 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:

> On Friday, April 11, 2014 5:04:28 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
[...]
> For the rest, Im not sure that you need my help in making a fool of
> yourself... Anyway since you are requesting said help, here goes:

Very strong words.


>> On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 22:42:14 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> > People whose familiarity with religion is limited to the
>> > Judeo-Christian tradition are inclined to the view (usually implicit)
>> > that "being religious" == "belief in God"
>> > However there are religions where belief in God is irreligious --
>> 
>> > Jainism
>> 
>> I think that it will come as rather a surprise to Jains to be told that
>> they don't believe in god. In fact, they believe in a multitude of gods
>> (not surprising, as Jainism is derived from Hinduism) and believe that
>> every soul has the potential to become a god.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Jainism and particularly
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Jainism#Heavenly_Beings


- You state that in Jainism, belief in god (which one?) is
  "irreligious" (i.e. hostile to religion);

- I point out that in the case of Jains, belief in many gods is 
  in fact a core part of their religion;

- you attempt to refute me by linking to an article which confirms 
  that belief in gods is part of Jainism.

And that's supposed to prove that I'm wrong?

Perhaps you think that "belief in gods" is ipso facto the same as 
"worshipping those gods"? That's an awfully naive view, especially for 
someone who started this discussion by complaining about the naivety of 
other people's understanding of religion.


>> > And others where it is is irrelevant -- Tao, Shinto. [There is the
>> > story of a westerner who wen to a shinto temple and said: All this
>> > (rites) is fine and beautiful but what's your *philosophy* To which
>> > he was told: "Philosophy? We have no philosophy! We dance!"]
>> 
>> A nice story, but the name "Shinto" even means "The Way Of The Gods",
>> so claiming that Shinto is not about gods is rubbish.
> 
> http://books.google.co.in/books?id=b-
VACc7jcOAC&lpg=PA159&ots=femTbp96rh&dq=shinto%20%22We%20have%20no%
20philosophy%22%20we%20dance&pg=PA159#v=onepage&q=shinto%20%22We%20have%
20no%20philosophy%22%20we%20dance&f=false

What's this supposed to prove? It's a nice story. The book you linked to 
doesn't give any more details than you do, it even states "A story is 
told". It's an unnamed philosopher, an unnamed priest from an anonymous 
temple. There is *absolutely nothing* suggesting it ever happened in real 
life, but even if it did, it certainly doesn't suggest anything about 
Shinto. If anything, it's about the ignorance of the supposed American 
philosopher.

Did you think I was questioning the existence of the story? I said 
nothing to suggest you made the story up (although it seems to me that 
the author you quote probably did). I don't question the existence of the 
story. I question that the story is meaningful.

It seems to me that only somebody *completely ignorant of Shinto* can 
possible think that Shinto in general has no philosophy or religious 
meaning. Shinto, as a glorified (literally) folk-religion, may lack the 
sort of over-arching grand philosophies of (say) the Catholic Church, but 
I think it is an astonishingly foolish thing to suggest that all they do 
is dance. Even figuratively.


>> > In middle-eastern society women are expected to dress heavier than in
>> > the West. A few years ago a girl went to school in France with a
>> > scarf and she was penalized.
>> 
>> Citation please. I think this is bogus, although given how obnoxious
>> some schools can be I'm not quite prepared to rule it out altogether. I
>> think it's far more likely that she was only penalized for wearing full
>> head- covering (not just a scarf) after being warned that it was not
>> part of the school uniform and therefore not appropriate.
> 
> In spite of Paul pointing out the link (thanks Paul)
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_France
> 
> you still persist in
> 
>> in this specific case, I stand by my skepticism
> 
> So you think that wikipedia link/article is bogus?

That article supports what I stated: the three girls (not one) were not 
penalized without warning for merely turning up to school with scarves. 
They were penalized for refusing to remove their hajibs, which were 
against the school's dress code.




-- 
Steven D'Aprano
http://import-that.dreamwidth.org/

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#70203

On 11/04/2014 3:42 PM, Rustom Mody wrote:
> On Friday, April 11, 2014 10:41:26 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Rustom Mody  wrote:
>>> Right. Its true that when I was at a fairly large corporate, I was not told:
>>> "Please always top post!"
>>>
>>> What I was very gently and super politely told was:
>>> "Please dont delete mail context"

>> Then you were told that by someone who does not understand email.

> You seem to be cocksure who is right.
> Im just curious who you think it is :-)

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

     If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
     summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
     enough text of the original to give a context.  This will make
     sure readers understand when they start to read your response.
     Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the
     postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
     response to a message before seeing the original.  Giving context
     helps everyone.  But do not include the entire original!

RFC1855 is the PEP8 of posting online :)

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#70205

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 12:13 AM, alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt
>
>     If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
>     summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
>     enough text of the original to give a context.  This will make
>     sure readers understand when they start to read your response.
>     Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the
>     postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
>     response to a message before seeing the original.  Giving context
>     helps everyone.  But do not include the entire original!
>
> RFC1855 is the PEP8 of posting online :)

But it also says:

      Don't get involved in flame wars.  Neither post nor respond
      to incendiary material.

So we're already pretty much not in compliance.

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#70095

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 11:11 PM, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Right. Its true that when I was at a fairly large corporate, I was not told:
>> "Please always top post!"
>>
>> What I was very gently and super politely told was:
>> "Please dont delete mail context"
>
> Then you were told that by someone who does not understand email.
> That's equivalent to being told "Don't ever delete any of your code,
> just comment it out". I don't care who's saying that, it's bad advice.

That depends on what the mail is being used for.  For instance there's
a difference between mail-as-dialogue and mail-as-business-process.
In the former it is normal, even polite, to prune as the topic evolves
and past quotations become less relevant.  In the latter it seems more
common for the entire thread to be preserved as a sort of "chain of
custody" -- this way the next person who needs to see the email thread
has full context as to what needs to happen and where the request is
coming from.

I'm generally in the habit of not pruning work-related emails even
when they are more of the dialogue type, because these tend to be very
tightly focused, and so that if a new person needs to be brought into
the conversation they will have the full context of what we're talking
about and why we're talking about it.

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#70117

On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 23:39:24 -0600, Ian Kelly wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 11:11 PM, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
> wrote:
[...]
>> Then you were told that by someone who does not understand email.
>> That's equivalent to being told "Don't ever delete any of your code,
>> just comment it out". I don't care who's saying that, it's bad advice.
> 
> That depends on what the mail is being used for.  For instance there's a
> difference between mail-as-dialogue and mail-as-business-process. In the
> former it is normal, even polite, to prune as the topic evolves and past
> quotations become less relevant.

Exactly.


> In the latter it seems more common for
> the entire thread to be preserved as a sort of "chain of custody" --

I think this is a rationalisation after the fact, and does not reflect 
actual practice with email.


> this way the next person who needs to see the email thread has full
> context as to what needs to happen and where the request is coming from.

I think this is wrong. First of all, quite often the newcomer doesn't 
need or want to see the full *history*. They need to know the *current* 
situation -- customer X wants to order 50,000 widgets *now*, the fact 
that seven emails ago they were asking for a quote on 20,000 gadgets is 
irrelevant.

Secondly, as soon as you have three or more people actively taking part 
is a conversation by email, no single email contains the entire history. 
So you still have to point the newcomer at some archive where they can 
see all the emails.

Thirdly, even when it is useful to read the entire history, it is far 
more understandable and efficient to read it in the order that it was 
written, not in reverse order.

I think that the habit of including the entire email history is just a 
side-effect of the typical corporate laziness and selfishness 
masquerading as "efficiency". Rather than take five minutes of my time to 
bring somebody up to speed with a summary telling them exactly what they 
need to know and nothing but what they need to know, I spend two seconds 
dumping the entire file in their lap. That's much more efficient! Except 
that the newcomer then has to spend twenty minutes or an hour and may end 
up misunderstanding the situation. But that's *his* fault, not mine -- my 
butt is covered.

(You'll notice that nobody ever does this kind of info-dump on high-
ranking executives. *Then* they take the time to write an executive 
summary.)

It is, in a way, the corporate equivalent of "RTFM", only enshrined as 
normal practice rather than seen as a deliberate put-down of somebody who 
hasn't done their homework. And because it's normal practice, even those 
who know better end up going along with the flow, because its easier than 
explaining to their supervisor why their emails are so confusing. And 
thus the world is made a slightly darker place.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano
http://import-that.dreamwidth.org/

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#70118

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 8:07 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
> It is, in a way, the corporate equivalent of "RTFM", only enshrined as
> normal practice rather than seen as a deliberate put-down of somebody who
> hasn't done their homework. And because it's normal practice, even those
> who know better end up going along with the flow, because its easier than
> explaining to their supervisor why their emails are so confusing. And
> thus the world is made a slightly darker place.

It's even worse. If someone comes to you saying "So what's this
Heartbleed thing?", RTFM would be providing a link to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed but the default corporate
practice is linking to
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heartbleed&action=history
and expecting the someone to read it all. But yes.

ChrisA

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#70100

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 3:39 PM, Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> wrote:
> That depends on what the mail is being used for.  For instance there's
> a difference between mail-as-dialogue and mail-as-business-process.
> In the former it is normal, even polite, to prune as the topic evolves
> and past quotations become less relevant.  In the latter it seems more
> common for the entire thread to be preserved as a sort of "chain of
> custody" -- this way the next person who needs to see the email thread
> has full context as to what needs to happen and where the request is
> coming from.

Sounds like a job for an internal wiki, actually. Have you ever gone
back through a fifty-post thread, reading through its entire unpruned
context to find something? And if you have, was it at all practical?
Somehow I doubt it.

ChrisA

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#70115

On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 21:37:22 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:

> Right. Its true that when I was at a fairly large corporate, I was not
> told: "Please always top post!"

That's only because they are ignorant of the terminology of top- bottom- 
and interleaved posting. If they knew the term, they would say it.


> What I was very gently and super politely told was: "Please dont delete
> mail context"

And your answer was, "I'm not. All the context required to establish 
meaning is there." Correct?

Or perhaps you said, "When you send a letter via paper mail, replying to 
someone's enquiry, do you photocopy their letter and staple it to the 
back of your response? And when they reply, to they photocopy YOUR 
response, *including the photocopy of their letter*, and sent it back? Of 
course you don't. That would be *idiotic*. It's no less idiotic when the 
effort of photocopying the letter is reduced to hitting Reply in Outlook."

Standard business handling of email truly is foolish. People only get 
away with it because, for the most part, *they stop reading* as soon as 
they hit the end of the top-posted reply (and their reading comprehension 
of that is generally lousy, but that's another story) and don't even 
notice that there are 15 pages of quoted-quoted-quoted-quoted-quoted-
quoted copies of their own words attached, complete with 10 copies of 
their (legally meaningless) disclaimer.

All this redundancy does nothing for improved communication, and it has 
real costs: emails are bigger than they need be, searching archives for 
information is harder, and if you're ever involved in a legal dispute, 
instead of paying your lawyer to review six pages of correspondence 
you're paying her to review sixty pages with the same semantic content. 
Top-posting is a classic example of the victory of short term gain 
(immediately save two seconds and a microscopic amount of effort when 
replying to an email) versus long term cost.


> Now when a mail goes round between 5 persons and what is addressed at
> one point is not the immediate previous mail, bottom-posting without
> pruning is as meaningless as top posting.

Ha. In my experience, anything not addressed immediately in corporate 
email is *never addressed again*, not until the original poster starts a 
new email to try to get an answer.


> As in religion or any cultural matter, its fine to stand up for and even
> vociferously uphold one's 'own' whatever that may be.
> 
> What is unhelpful is
> - to suggest that my norms are universal norms. IOW there is a
> fundamental difference between natural and human-made laws
> - to lose track of statistics, in this case the population-densities of
> USENET vs other internet-kiddie cultures


I don't know that there is anyone here that thinks interleaved posting is 
the norm among the majority of email users. Nor is anyone saying that 
Usenet posters make up a majority of internet users. What we are saying 
is that *interleaved posting is objectively better* for most forms of 
email or news communication (although it is not a panacea), and 
especially for *technical discussions* like those that occur here.



-- 
Steven D'Aprano
http://import-that.dreamwidth.org/

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#70107

On Fri, 11 Apr 2014 13:59:00 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:

> I have seen plenty of cultures where people are unaware of the value of
> interleaved/bottom posting, but so far, not one where anyone has
> actually required it. Not one. 

I've been in plenty of mailing list forums where interleaved posting was 
required, but there's only so many times you can tell people off for 
being rude before you start coming across as rude yourself.

It's one of those nasty aspects of human psychology: the guy who casually 
and without malice tosses litter out of his car window, spoiling things 
for everyone, is somehow considered less obnoxious than the person who 
tells him off. Except in Switzerland, where if you leave your rubbish bin 
out more than twenty minutes after its been emptied, the neighbours 
consider it perfectly acceptable to tell you off, never mind that you've 
been at work. And heaven help you if you take your discarded Christmas 
tree down to the street too early.


> "Norm" here just means "the thing people
> are too lazy to not do". That's not a reason for anyone else doing it.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. As far as I am concerned, the 
norm here absolutely is interleaved posting. Nearly all of the regular 
posters use it, have have done so for the decade or so I've been here. 
Interleaved posting requires more, not less, work -- that's one of the 
appeals of top-posting: it makes it easy to avoid editing your post for 
sense and readability, you can just bang on the keyboard and fire off 
whatever your first thoughts were, never mind actually answering the 
questions you were asked.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano
http://import-that.dreamwidth.org/

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#70108

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Apr 2014 13:59:00 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> I have seen plenty of cultures where people are unaware of the value of
>> interleaved/bottom posting, but so far, not one where anyone has
>> actually required it. Not one.
>
> I've been in plenty of mailing list forums where interleaved posting was
> required, but there's only so many times you can tell people off for
> being rude before you start coming across as rude yourself.

Oops, I worded that badly. What I meant was "not one where anyone has
actually required top-posting". There are places where bottom-posting
is expected/required, there are places where nobody cares enough to
complain, but I've yet to meet any where bottom posting is actually
forbidden.

>> "Norm" here just means "the thing people
>> are too lazy to not do". That's not a reason for anyone else doing it.
>
> I'm not sure what you are talking about. As far as I am concerned, the
> norm here absolutely is interleaved posting. Nearly all of the regular
> posters use it, have have done so for the decade or so I've been here.
> Interleaved posting requires more, not less, work -- that's one of the
> appeals of top-posting: it makes it easy to avoid editing your post for
> sense and readability, you can just bang on the keyboard and fire off
> whatever your first thoughts were, never mind actually answering the
> questions you were asked.

Right, and I'm glad that the norm here happens to be the better
option. But the reason for advocating it is not "everyone else does
it", but "it's the better way".

ChrisA

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#70132 — Re: Interleaved vs. top-posting

On 2014-04-11 13:59, Chris Angelico wrote:
> I have seen plenty of cultures where people are unaware of the value
> of interleaved/bottom posting, but so far, not one where anyone has
> actually required it. Not one.

The only time I've seen top-posting required (though there was
nothing about trimming/dropping the content from the bottom) was on
some lists for blind users where they wanted the new content at the
top of the email rather than having to wade through lots of content
they'd heard previously.  The actual context was usually either given
by in-sentence referencing to the topic, or the subject-heading
(blind folks seem to have an incredible memory for things sighted
folks are usually too lazy to remember).

-tkc

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#70178 — Re: Interleaved vs. top-posting

in 720726 20140411 134419 Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> wrote:
>On 2014-04-11 13:59, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> I have seen plenty of cultures where people are unaware of the value
>> of interleaved/bottom posting, but so far, not one where anyone has
>> actually required it. Not one.
>
>The only time I've seen top-posting required (though there was
>nothing about trimming/dropping the content from the bottom) was on
>some lists for blind users where they wanted the new content at the
>top of the email rather than having to wade through lots of content
>they'd heard previously.  The actual context was usually either given
>by in-sentence referencing to the topic, or the subject-heading
>(blind folks seem to have an incredible memory for things sighted
>folks are usually too lazy to remember).

I read IBM's internal forums from 1978 on (on VM/CMS).
Top posting was the norm where quoted text was included, though
quoting wasn't necessary as there was a means to display the post
being answered.

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#70088 — Ostracising bad actors (was: Teaching python to non-programmers)

"Rhodri James" <rhodri@wildebst.org.uk> writes:

> Sorry your post was the straw to break the camel's back this week, but
> it is a complete pain to the rest of us. I have more than once
> considered getting my reader to automatically discard anything with
> "@googlegroups.com" in the message ID just to reduce the aggravation.

I passed that threshold long ago. Posts that come to my Usenet client
via Google Groups are automatically marked for deletion.

I strongly recommend everyone do the same; and also to lobby for (and
support) alternative Usenet interfaces which don't mangle the messages.

-- 
 \     “You know what would make a good story? Something about a clown |
  `\    who makes people happy, but inside he's real sad. Also, he has |
_o__)                                   severe diarrhea.” —Jack Handey |
Ben Finney

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#70165

On Thursday, April 10, 2014 3:40:22 PM UTC-7, Rhodri James wrote:
> It's called irony, and unfortunately Mark is reacting to an all-to-common  
> situation that GoogleGroups foists on unsuspecting posters like yourself.   

People who say "I can't be bothered to correct this" while posting a wise a$$ correction are just trolling, probably not funny in real life either. I think if you're going to wise off than be witty about it, otherwise just a terse reference to a link.

At any rate, my original point stands. You're not teaching on planet Vulcan. Better to teach things in an odd order if that helps motivates your students. It's not like people in real life carefully examine all available documentation before learning some piece of tech. Usually they shrug and say "what's the worst that could happen", dive in, and roll with the consequences.

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#70172

On Saturday, April 12, 2014 1:50:05 AM UTC+5:30, pete.b...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, April 10, 2014 3:40:22 PM UTC-7, Rhodri James wrote:
> 
> > It's called irony, and unfortunately Mark is reacting to an all-to-common  
> > situation that GoogleGroups foists on unsuspecting posters like yourself.   
> 
> 
> 
> People who say "I can't be bothered to correct this" while posting a wise a$$ correction are just trolling, probably not funny in real life either. I think if you're going to wise off than be witty about it, otherwise just a terse reference to a link.

Thanks Pete for taking the trouble for aligning your posting style with
the norms expected out here.

On problem -- the over long lines -- remains.

If you compare your post
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2014-April/670693.html

with typical neighboring others, you will see that.

[Just for the record I should mention that I did not know this to be a problem
for a long time until someone pointed it out to me.
]

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