On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 2:49 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solip...@pitrou.net> wrote:
> Le 08/04/2014 04:02, Steven D'Aprano a écrit :
>
>>
>> Many, many more people take part in the CPython core developer culture
>> than just the core developers themselves. Look at the readership of this
>> mailing list, which is open to the public and has regular posters who
>> aren't core developers. In-jokes like Guido as the BDFL
>
>
> Is it a joke? I thought Guido was the BDFL for real :-o
>
Is it a joke, or is it serious? Where do you draw the line between wit
for the purpose of making a point, and a joke that bears a kernel of
truth?
I've wisdom from the East and from the West,
That's subject to no academic rule;
You may find it in the jeering of a jest,
Or distil it from the folly of a fool.
I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind;
I can trick you into learning with a laugh;
Oh, winnow all my folly, and you'll find
A grain or two of truth among the chaff!
-- WS Gilbert, via Jack Point the jester, in "Yeomen of the Guard"
To many people, the concept of a benevolent dictator for life whom
nobody has to obey is a joke. And yet that's exactly the truth; Guido
*is* dictator, because Python is his project. But on the other hand
(I'm running out of hands here), he wants his project to be useful to
people, so he has to follow the paradoxical plan of Jim Hacker: "I'm
their leader! I must follow them!". Joke? Truth? Neither? Both? It's
really hard to say...
It's even harder to draw the line when you have, for instance, Monty
Python references being used as metasyntactic variables. A perfectly
serious document needs to explain how to split a string into words:
>>> "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!".split()
['Nobody', 'expects', 'the', 'Spanish', 'Inquisition!']
Is that a joke, or a serious example of an important string operation?
Or perchance a brilliant combination of both... and there I go quoting
another jester, in this case "The Court Jester" starring Danny Kaye.
Am I joking around because I'm citing four different comedies, or am I
making a completely serious point?
ChrisA
_______________________________________________
Python-Dev mailing list
Python-Dev@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev
Unsubscribe:
https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
