On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 10:56:27 AM UTC-6, John Gordon wrote: > Rick Johnson writes: > > Your lament does remind me of a pet peeve i have concerning Python, and > > that is, the lie about: "THERE SHOULD BE ONE (AND PREFERABLY ONLY ONE) > > WAY TO DO IT!". In fact, in python there is almost always *MANY* ways to > > achieve the same output.=20 > > The koan reads: > > There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. > > You left out the rather important word "obvious".
Indeed you are correct about the wording, but your interpretation is wrong. In fact, adding the word "obvious" only adds more truth to my argument. The word "obvious" does not imply that the choose method is "one *OBVIOUS* choice in a set of many choices", no, the word obvious merely implies intuitiveness. Let's dissect the "koan" component by component: "There should be one" This component is less of a request, and more of a demand. It seems the author wishes to stress that whatever follows, there should only be one of them. "and preferably only one" Interesting. Utilizing his advanced intellect, the author realizes that confining any set of choices to a length of one is not always possible, however, he *AGAIN* stresses the importance of length one! I'm beginning to see a common and obvious theme here, do you? "obvious way to do it" And finally we encounter the obviousness of the one chosen way! The three components can be summarized as follows: First he demands a length of one, then he allows for exceptions while again stressing the importance of "one", and finally he stresses the importance of intuitiveness by using the word "obvious". In *NONE* of these components does the author *ENCOURAGE* a set of choices, no, he consistently stresses the importance of "one". And although it seems he has lost his will within the middle component (by entertaining the "unpreferred" possibility of more than one choice) he did not do so because his argument for "one" is weak, rather because, he knows that conflict and contrarianism is inevitable in a world that is ruled by selfish hairless apes! He has both demanded, and made an impassioned plea for, the "one obvious way" to do it. Any other interpretation is pure emotional projection. PS: Now that I've defeated the claim that "the koan is encouraging more than one way", as a last resort, they will dismiss the koan as unimportant. This is not my first experience here folks!!! PPS: Koan must be word of the day. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
