7 ms·

He wrote his rant a few months ago, which was well after every major library switched to Python 3. Dunno if you mean his previous book or the rant where he sai

He wrote his rant a few months ago, which was well after every major library switched to Python 3. Dunno if you mean his previous book or the rant where he said, among other things, that Python 3 wasn't turing complete.

jhbadger 10y ago
He updated it a few months ago, but he's had versions of this for quite some time. Yes, maintaining it in late 2016 is somewhat stubborn, but it made a lot of sense in the early years of Python 3.
- thehardsphere 10y ago
  I have a difficult time believing that we're talking about the same rant, because the one I'm talking about would not have made any sense even in the early years of Python 3. Oh, I see it's been updated with a sober disclaimer now, where "In the previous version I trolled people" and "I even had a note after the gag saying it was a gag, but everyone is too stupid to read that note even when they do elaborate responses to my writing." I read his writing very carefully. This note didn't exist.
  - albedoa 10y ago
    > I read his writing very carefully. This note didn't exist. If only there were a machine with which we could go way back: https://web.archive.org/web/20161123042252/https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html https://web.archive.org/web/20161123042252/https://learnpyth... Yes, that is kind of funny way of saying that there's no reason why Python 2 and Python 3 can't coexist other than the Python project's incompetence and arrogance. Obviously it's theoretically possible to run Python 2 in Python 3, but until they do it then they have decided to say that Python 3 cannot run one other Turing complete language so logically Python 3 is not Turing complete. I should also mention that as stupid as that sounds, actual Python project developers have told me this, so it's their position that their own language is not Turing complete.
    - joshuamorton 10y ago
      If you check hacker news and reddit threads from the original posting, that note wasn't on the article when it was originally posted. It was only added later, but apparently still before anyone archived it. Edit: I'm mistaken, however I'll say what I said then again: The note does nothing to show that he actually understands the statements he's making. The note gets the definition of turing completeness wrong too.
      - thehardsphere 10y ago
        If you have a link proving that, I would love to see it. I completely believe you that it was added later, as it's my own recollection that there was no note. But regardless, it doesn't change the fact that Zed wrote as if didn't know what he was talking about.
  - phaemon 10y ago
    You didn't read it carefully enough. It did exist. It read: "Yes, that is kind of funny way of saying that there's no reason why Python 2 and Python 3 can't coexist other than the Python project's incompetence and arrogance. Obviously it's theoretically possible to run Python 2 in Python 3, but until they do it then they have decided to say that Python 3 cannot run one other Turing complete language so logically Python 3 is not Turing complete. I should also mention that as stupid as that sounds, actual Python project developers have told me this, so it's their position that their own language is not Turing complete." See: http://web.archive.org/web/20161123042252/https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html http://web.archive.org/web/20161123042252/https://learnpytho...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - thehardsphere 10y ago
    For those of you now breaking out the Internet Archive to prove the note existed > "Yes, that is kind of funny way of saying that there's no reason why Python 2 and Python 3 can't coexist other than the Python project's incompetence and arrogance. Obviously it's theoretically possible to run Python 2 in Python 3, but until they do it then they have decided to say that Python 3 cannot run one other Turing complete language so logically Python 3 is not Turing complete." Even though he says it's a "funny" way to say something, his explanation of said "joke" is not a correct description of what Turing completeness is. There is no "gag" here; Zed didn't understand it, and when people on the internet corrected him, he decided to play it off as a gag. Edit: Just to make it explicit for those of you reading who don't get it, "Turing completeness" doesn't mean "I can run a program written in X in Y's runtime." It means that a language is capable of expressing all operations a Turing machine can do, which means that you can re-write a program in X to a program in Y if both X and Y are Turing complete. You can obviously re-write a Python 2 program to be a Python 3 program, so both of those languages are Turing complete. The property he describes later, of the JVM and the CLR supporting multiple languages has absolutely nothing to do with Turing completeness. Lisp and Javascript are both Turing complete languages, but the fact that you can't run Lisp on Node.js doesn't mean you can't re-write a Lisp program in Javascript. The fact that he's equating being able to run many languages on a single runtime and Turing compleness means he doesn't understand what he's talking about.
    - eastWestMath 10y ago
      In other words: http://i.imgur.com/pLOrJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/pLOrJ.jpg
    - lmkg 10y ago
      > "Turing completeness" doesn't mean "I can run a program written in X in Y's runtime." It's not the definition of Turing Complete, but it is a provable property of Turing-Completeness. If Y is Turing-Complete, then you can use Y to write an interpreter for X. Then the issue is reduced to arguing about what the word "in" means in the phrase "run Python 2 in Python 3."
      - 10y ago
emondi 10y ago
That was sarcasm against the impossibility of running python 2 code in the python 3 interpreter.
- thehardsphere 10y ago
  I'm sure that defense is just as valid as "we were hacked and someone wrote all of those dumb things we said in exactly our writing style."

jhbadger 10y ago

He updated it a few months ago, but he's had versions of this for quite some time. Yes, maintaining it in late 2016 is somewhat stubborn, but it made a lot of sense in the early years of Python 3.

thehardsphere 10y ago
I have a difficult time believing that we're talking about the same rant, because the one I'm talking about would not have made any sense even in the early years of Python 3. Oh, I see it's been updated with a sober disclaimer now, where "In the previous version I trolled people" and "I even had a note after the gag saying it was a gag, but everyone is too stupid to read that note even when they do elaborate responses to my writing." I read his writing very carefully. This note didn't exist.
- albedoa 10y ago
  > I read his writing very carefully. This note didn't exist. If only there were a machine with which we could go way back: https://web.archive.org/web/20161123042252/https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html https://web.archive.org/web/20161123042252/https://learnpyth... Yes, that is kind of funny way of saying that there's no reason why Python 2 and Python 3 can't coexist other than the Python project's incompetence and arrogance. Obviously it's theoretically possible to run Python 2 in Python 3, but until they do it then they have decided to say that Python 3 cannot run one other Turing complete language so logically Python 3 is not Turing complete. I should also mention that as stupid as that sounds, actual Python project developers have told me this, so it's their position that their own language is not Turing complete.
  - joshuamorton 10y ago
    If you check hacker news and reddit threads from the original posting, that note wasn't on the article when it was originally posted. It was only added later, but apparently still before anyone archived it. Edit: I'm mistaken, however I'll say what I said then again: The note does nothing to show that he actually understands the statements he's making. The note gets the definition of turing completeness wrong too.
    - thehardsphere 10y ago
      If you have a link proving that, I would love to see it. I completely believe you that it was added later, as it's my own recollection that there was no note. But regardless, it doesn't change the fact that Zed wrote as if didn't know what he was talking about.
- phaemon 10y ago
  You didn't read it carefully enough. It did exist. It read: "Yes, that is kind of funny way of saying that there's no reason why Python 2 and Python 3 can't coexist other than the Python project's incompetence and arrogance. Obviously it's theoretically possible to run Python 2 in Python 3, but until they do it then they have decided to say that Python 3 cannot run one other Turing complete language so logically Python 3 is not Turing complete. I should also mention that as stupid as that sounds, actual Python project developers have told me this, so it's their position that their own language is not Turing complete." See: http://web.archive.org/web/20161123042252/https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/nopython3.html http://web.archive.org/web/20161123042252/https://learnpytho...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- thehardsphere 10y ago
  For those of you now breaking out the Internet Archive to prove the note existed > "Yes, that is kind of funny way of saying that there's no reason why Python 2 and Python 3 can't coexist other than the Python project's incompetence and arrogance. Obviously it's theoretically possible to run Python 2 in Python 3, but until they do it then they have decided to say that Python 3 cannot run one other Turing complete language so logically Python 3 is not Turing complete." Even though he says it's a "funny" way to say something, his explanation of said "joke" is not a correct description of what Turing completeness is. There is no "gag" here; Zed didn't understand it, and when people on the internet corrected him, he decided to play it off as a gag. Edit: Just to make it explicit for those of you reading who don't get it, "Turing completeness" doesn't mean "I can run a program written in X in Y's runtime." It means that a language is capable of expressing all operations a Turing machine can do, which means that you can re-write a program in X to a program in Y if both X and Y are Turing complete. You can obviously re-write a Python 2 program to be a Python 3 program, so both of those languages are Turing complete. The property he describes later, of the JVM and the CLR supporting multiple languages has absolutely nothing to do with Turing completeness. Lisp and Javascript are both Turing complete languages, but the fact that you can't run Lisp on Node.js doesn't mean you can't re-write a Lisp program in Javascript. The fact that he's equating being able to run many languages on a single runtime and Turing compleness means he doesn't understand what he's talking about.
  - eastWestMath 10y ago
    In other words: http://i.imgur.com/pLOrJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/pLOrJ.jpg
  - lmkg 10y ago
    > "Turing completeness" doesn't mean "I can run a program written in X in Y's runtime." It's not the definition of Turing Complete, but it is a provable property of Turing-Completeness. If Y is Turing-Complete, then you can use Y to write an interpreter for X. Then the issue is reduced to arguing about what the word "in" means in the phrase "run Python 2 in Python 3."
    - 10y ago

emondi 10y ago

That was sarcasm against the impossibility of running python 2 code in the python 3 interpreter.

thehardsphere 10y ago
I'm sure that defense is just as valid as "we were hacked and someone wrote all of those dumb things we said in exactly our writing style."