3 ms·

If you don't want to start a language war, maybe you shouldn't present subjective opinion as facts?

by judofyr 8y ago

posterboy 8y ago
As with programming languages, natural languages aren't uniform. So you might interpret "one reason" to mean only one or, since "only" wasn't said, give some leeway, assume good faith, and take it as "at least one, and that maybe enough", "primary", or whatever. It's underspecified, as the linguists say.
- judofyr 8y ago
  The statement could have been made more neutral by stating that it was a preference: > I prefer programming in Lisp, but the packages available for Python makes me a lot more productive. That alone is enough for me to choose Python. I still miss Lisp though. Language wars are started because people talk about their preferences as an absolute truth (and other people disagree with the presented absolute truth), and you don’t avoid them by starting with “I don’t want to start a language war” while continuing talking in the same way. If you look at the other replies you see what typically happens: someone mentioned that Lisp does also have libraries, someone mentioned that there are other reasons to choose Python, someone mentioned that the article has a different focus (teaching, not writing). Instead of a comment thread where people talk about their experiences we have a thread where people point back at the OP and loudly complain “no, but see, you are wrong, because of x”. We even have a case where the OP is getting annoyed because someone assumed he didn’t know about Norvig. Seriously, this is exactly what happens when you write in such a style. This comment alone will make someone annoyed because there are plenty of people who have used both Lisp and Python and (guess what?) prefers Python: > Still, switching from Lisp to Python is bound to be painful...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

3 ms·

If you don't want to start a language war, maybe you shouldn't present subjective opinion as facts?

by judofyr 8y ago

If you don't want to start a language war, maybe you shouldn't present subjective opinion as facts?

posterboy 8y ago
As with programming languages, natural languages aren't uniform. So you might interpret "one reason" to mean only one or, since "only" wasn't said, give some leeway, assume good faith, and take it as "at least one, and that maybe enough", "primary", or whatever. It's underspecified, as the linguists say.
- judofyr 8y ago
  The statement could have been made more neutral by stating that it was a preference: > I prefer programming in Lisp, but the packages available for Python makes me a lot more productive. That alone is enough for me to choose Python. I still miss Lisp though. Language wars are started because people talk about their preferences as an absolute truth (and other people disagree with the presented absolute truth), and you don’t avoid them by starting with “I don’t want to start a language war” while continuing talking in the same way. If you look at the other replies you see what typically happens: someone mentioned that Lisp does also have libraries, someone mentioned that there are other reasons to choose Python, someone mentioned that the article has a different focus (teaching, not writing). Instead of a comment thread where people talk about their experiences we have a thread where people point back at the OP and loudly complain “no, but see, you are wrong, because of x”. We even have a case where the OP is getting annoyed because someone assumed he didn’t know about Norvig. Seriously, this is exactly what happens when you write in such a style. This comment alone will make someone annoyed because there are plenty of people who have used both Lisp and Python and (guess what?) prefers Python: > Still, switching from Lisp to Python is bound to be painful...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]