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I really hope that the condescending tone of the article was because the author was tired or something, and that it's not the attitude they use when contributin

by Zababa 5y ago

I really hope that the condescending tone of the article was because the author was tired or something, and that it's not the attitude they use when contributing to a linter. The authors comes out as arrogant and self-centered, the "reactions" are strawmans, the tone is aggressive. Sure that nice Beeping Busy Beaver uses only one loop, very cool. The "guessing game" program that almost everyone wrote when learning programming also uses one loop. I'll now go work on my linter for blog posts that forbids using bold text. The Bible didn't use any bold text, so why would a simple blog post need it?

q-rews 5y ago
> The "guessing game" program that almost everyone wrote when learning programming also uses one loop. Just because it’s used by very beginners it doesn’t mean it’s good. That’s, like, the opposite of the truth. Beginners also clutter their code with endless “else if” sequences. You just complained about strawmans and followed with a strawman.
- Zababa 5y ago
  > Just because it’s used by very beginners it doesn’t mean it’s good. That’s, like, the opposite of the truth. I don't remember saying anywhere that this guessing game was good. You're putting words into my mouth (keyboard?) here. What I meant to say was that saying that the Beeping Busy Beaver only needs one loop doesn't add anything to the discussion, since a simple guessing game also needs one loop. Quoting the article: > If you have a while loop and you are not working on something that requires unbounded computation, chances are that it can be rewritten more clearly as a for loop. I ran this check against the Pylint codebase itself, and I was shocked by the hideousness of some of the while’s that turned up. They couldn’t all be rewritten, but many could. > Even the recently-discovered Beeping Busy Beaver champion program only uses one unbounded while loop, and that’s as a kind of toplevel program driver. Here's how I would put it, in a kinder and more humble way: "Most of the code I write only needs one main loop, and usually I'm not the one writing it. When I'm using something like Django, I have no need for a while loop, as it's already handled by the framework. In that case, I want the linter to highlight these loops. They are a potential danger, and something I want to pay special attention to. Even when I have to write myself that loop, I want to clearly separate the main loop from what runs into it. In my experience, this leads to code that is more readable, more maintanable, and that has less bugs. Thus, this is a good linter rule." > Beginners also clutter their code with endless “else if” sequences. Well, it's not like they can use a switch, considering it's Python. Or are you referring to pattern matching? Or you think using a dictionnary would be more idiomatic? I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. The part about the Bible and bold text was a parody of the article to quickly highlight what's wrong with it. I personally dislike bold text. I think people shouldn't use it most of the time. Thus I did the same thing as in the article: I used an appeal to authority (the Bible, equivalent to the Beeping Busy Beaver) to say that everything smaller than the Bible shouldn't even use bold text, as the Bible doesn't need any.
cjfd 5y ago
Maybe the tone is fully representative. One could start to wonder what kind of people would be attracted to working on linters. 'Now I get to tell everybody what is good or bad'.
- Zababa 5y ago
  I don't think we should extrapolate to what kind of people work on linters or even on how the author thinks. I think the article and the contributions both come from good intentions, and I even agree with the two linting rules. What I don't like at all is the tone of the article. Part of the role of linters is education, and education shouldn't be done with that tone.
dkersten 5y ago
> forbids using bold text Hah. Once-upon a time, I relied on bold text a lot for emphasis. Then I learned that its a crutch for bad writing, so I made an effort to use it very sparingly. I think my written material has improved substantially because of it. I think keeping bold text to a minimum is a good rule to follow when writing.

by Zababa 5y ago

q-rews 5y ago

> The "guessing game" program that almost everyone wrote when learning programming also uses one loop. Just because it’s used by very beginners it doesn’t mean it’s good. That’s, like, the opposite of the truth. Beginners also clutter their code with endless “else if” sequences. You just complained about strawmans and followed with a strawman.

Zababa 5y ago
> Just because it’s used by very beginners it doesn’t mean it’s good. That’s, like, the opposite of the truth. I don't remember saying anywhere that this guessing game was good. You're putting words into my mouth (keyboard?) here. What I meant to say was that saying that the Beeping Busy Beaver only needs one loop doesn't add anything to the discussion, since a simple guessing game also needs one loop. Quoting the article: > If you have a while loop and you are not working on something that requires unbounded computation, chances are that it can be rewritten more clearly as a for loop. I ran this check against the Pylint codebase itself, and I was shocked by the hideousness of some of the while’s that turned up. They couldn’t all be rewritten, but many could. > Even the recently-discovered Beeping Busy Beaver champion program only uses one unbounded while loop, and that’s as a kind of toplevel program driver. Here's how I would put it, in a kinder and more humble way: "Most of the code I write only needs one main loop, and usually I'm not the one writing it. When I'm using something like Django, I have no need for a while loop, as it's already handled by the framework. In that case, I want the linter to highlight these loops. They are a potential danger, and something I want to pay special attention to. Even when I have to write myself that loop, I want to clearly separate the main loop from what runs into it. In my experience, this leads to code that is more readable, more maintanable, and that has less bugs. Thus, this is a good linter rule." > Beginners also clutter their code with endless “else if” sequences. Well, it's not like they can use a switch, considering it's Python. Or are you referring to pattern matching? Or you think using a dictionnary would be more idiomatic? I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. The part about the Bible and bold text was a parody of the article to quickly highlight what's wrong with it. I personally dislike bold text. I think people shouldn't use it most of the time. Thus I did the same thing as in the article: I used an appeal to authority (the Bible, equivalent to the Beeping Busy Beaver) to say that everything smaller than the Bible shouldn't even use bold text, as the Bible doesn't need any.

cjfd 5y ago

Maybe the tone is fully representative. One could start to wonder what kind of people would be attracted to working on linters. 'Now I get to tell everybody what is good or bad'.

Zababa 5y ago
I don't think we should extrapolate to what kind of people work on linters or even on how the author thinks. I think the article and the contributions both come from good intentions, and I even agree with the two linting rules. What I don't like at all is the tone of the article. Part of the role of linters is education, and education shouldn't be done with that tone.

dkersten 5y ago

> forbids using bold text Hah. Once-upon a time, I relied on bold text a lot for emphasis. Then I learned that its a crutch for bad writing, so I made an effort to use it very sparingly. I think my written material has improved substantially because of it. I think keeping bold text to a minimum is a good rule to follow when writing.