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Oh, please. It's not like anyone's forcing you to be an trolling asshole, so why do you gladly volunteer? You don't know Guido, and you don't have the slighte

by studer 16y ago

Oh, please. It's not like anyone's forcing you to be an trolling asshole, so why do you gladly volunteer? You don't know Guido, and you don't have the slightest idea what he knows and not.

mahmud 16y ago
By his own admission: "A lot of people remarked that in my post on Tail Recursion Elimination I confused tail self-recursion with other tail calls, which proper Tail Call Optimization (TCO) also eliminates. I now feel more educated: tail calls are not just about loops" http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-words-on-tail-calls.html http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-words-on-tail-... What exactly did your reply contribute, aside from calling me a "trolling asshole"?
- moe 16y ago
  So, Guido had a misconception about something, was educated about it, is now smarter than before - and freely admitting it. Seems like quite a normal thing to me (it's called "learning"), so what's the big deal here? Is Guido not allowed to make mistakes?
  - Scriptor 16y ago
    The "Benevolent Dictator" of a major language is still learning some basics of language design 18 years into starting that language. I'd more more okay with it if Guido didn't have such a strong grasp on the language's future.
    - moe 16y ago
      I don't agree with all of his decisions either but find it a bit ridiculous to call him out on "not knowing the basics", given he created one of the most popular scripting languages in existence. As I understood the discussion there is no definite "right" or "wrong" on the issue anyways - it's merely one of the many tradeoffs. Quite possibly one where he wasn't fully aware of all details and implications. But heck, if you need to argue then how about arguing for or against a particular way to do TCO in python instead of going ad hominem against the guy who built the entire playground that you're building your little sandcastles in?
      - Scriptor 16y ago
        I only said he didn't know "some of the basics". Also, this is neither a personal attack on irrelevant facets of him, nor is it just about TCO. Python has done very well in its history and I personally like it. However, Guido made his final decision literally days after learning the distinction. This means before that any decisions he made in this area were based on shaky information. Furthermore, he was initially informed by comments on his blog, not his own research. I'm worried what this means for future decisions in Python if Guido doesn't research something on his own before making decisions on it. I understand that he's busy, but working of Python is part of that and surely research should be included :).
- devinj 16y ago
  Er, that's not a complete misunderstanding of recursion. Recursion is recursion regardless of implementation-- he misunderstood one way of implementing recursion.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- studer 16y ago
  You claimed that he had "complete misunderstanding of recursion until someone mailed him a copy of SICP". To prove that, you refer to an implementation technique? Here's the thing: Your first post was unfounded and uninformed personal attack on someone you don't know. That's reddit style trolling, and says a lot more about what kind of person you are than it says about the person you're attacking. Hacker news would be better place without that.

by studer 16y ago

Oh, please. It's not like anyone's forcing you to be an trolling asshole, so why do you gladly volunteer? You don't know Guido, and you don't have the slightest idea what he knows and not.

mahmud 16y ago

By his own admission: "A lot of people remarked that in my post on Tail Recursion Elimination I confused tail self-recursion with other tail calls, which proper Tail Call Optimization (TCO) also eliminates. I now feel more educated: tail calls are not just about loops" http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-words-on-tail-calls.html http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-words-on-tail-... What exactly did your reply contribute, aside from calling me a "trolling asshole"?

moe 16y ago
So, Guido had a misconception about something, was educated about it, is now smarter than before - and freely admitting it. Seems like quite a normal thing to me (it's called "learning"), so what's the big deal here? Is Guido not allowed to make mistakes?
- Scriptor 16y ago
  The "Benevolent Dictator" of a major language is still learning some basics of language design 18 years into starting that language. I'd more more okay with it if Guido didn't have such a strong grasp on the language's future.
  - moe 16y ago
    I don't agree with all of his decisions either but find it a bit ridiculous to call him out on "not knowing the basics", given he created one of the most popular scripting languages in existence. As I understood the discussion there is no definite "right" or "wrong" on the issue anyways - it's merely one of the many tradeoffs. Quite possibly one where he wasn't fully aware of all details and implications. But heck, if you need to argue then how about arguing for or against a particular way to do TCO in python instead of going ad hominem against the guy who built the entire playground that you're building your little sandcastles in?
    - Scriptor 16y ago
      I only said he didn't know "some of the basics". Also, this is neither a personal attack on irrelevant facets of him, nor is it just about TCO. Python has done very well in its history and I personally like it. However, Guido made his final decision literally days after learning the distinction. This means before that any decisions he made in this area were based on shaky information. Furthermore, he was initially informed by comments on his blog, not his own research. I'm worried what this means for future decisions in Python if Guido doesn't research something on his own before making decisions on it. I understand that he's busy, but working of Python is part of that and surely research should be included :).
devinj 16y ago
Er, that's not a complete misunderstanding of recursion. Recursion is recursion regardless of implementation-- he misunderstood one way of implementing recursion.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
studer 16y ago
You claimed that he had "complete misunderstanding of recursion until someone mailed him a copy of SICP". To prove that, you refer to an implementation technique? Here's the thing: Your first post was unfounded and uninformed personal attack on someone you don't know. That's reddit style trolling, and says a lot more about what kind of person you are than it says about the person you're attacking. Hacker news would be better place without that.