Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Xah Lee wrote:
> For those reading this, i also want to mention, that although i think
> Perl is a motherfucking language on earth, and its leader and
> “inventor” Larry Wall has done massive damage to the computing world,
> but Perl the community is in fact very tolerant in general (which is
> to Larry's credit), when compared to the motherfucking Pythoners (who
> knew SHIT) as well as many of the self-appointed lisp bigwig
> characters.
Be careful not to damage the English language by making "motherfucking"
a compliment :)
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Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
On 18 Apr., 01:54, Lew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Markus E Leypold > > >> Trying to correct Xah's behaviour is probably impossible. > Ingo Menger wrote: > > Perhaps somebody could ask the chinese government to put him in jail > > for "hurting international society" :) > > Y'know, even in jest, calling for an oppressive regime to suppress even > wrong-headed and self-serving garbage self-expression is immoral and horrible. You're right. I confess this joke was going too far. > Free speech, free press and free expression of ideas is not something to take > so lightly. I'm with you on this point. But, since the biggest crime in Xah Lee's opinion apparently is "harming" and "damaging" society through expression of ideas, it must be possible to judge him by his own standards. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Xah Lee wrote: > Dear Ken, > > I want to thank you for your spirit in supporting and leading the lisp > community, in spreading lisp the language both in what you have done > technically as well as evangelization, as well as the love and > knowledge attitude towards newsgroup communities in general, in part > thru your numerous replies to my posts in the past years. Hey, thx, but to me recommending Lisp is like recommending water to a life form. Meanwhile, the last thing anyone can doubt is that you say what you mean and mean what you say, so all we can say about your detractors is... > (as opposed > to, the motherfucking pack of driveling and fuckface ignoramuses that > are predominate personalities in newsgroups, ...OK, but we know this from long Usenet experience. Reaching Enlightenment means smiling on these noisemakers and having compassion for them, for they live in mean, narrow worlds and in attacking you are only reaching for the sunlight you enjoy, in however their ignorant way. The nice thing about this compassionate view is that it leaves you feeling positive and at peace within yourself, whereas the "driveling and fuckface" thing leaves you feeling negative and attacked. less good, for my money. ken -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
George Neuner wrote: > On 17 Apr 2007 08:20:24 -0700, Ingo Menger > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>On 17 Apr., 12:33, Markus E Leypold >><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> >>>What makes Xah a troll is neither off-topic posts nor being >>>incoherent -- its the attitude. He's broadcasting his drivel to a >>>number of groups not with the intention to discuss (he hardly ever >>>answers to answers to his posts), but solely with the intention to >>>inform the world at large about his own magnificient thoughts. >> >>This hits the nail on the head. >>Perhaps one could understand this behaviour on cultural grounds. In >>chinese culture it may be not uncommon to write something that merely >>sounds like great wisdom and it is nevertheless appreciated because >>it's a piece of calligraphic art. >> >> >>>Trying to correct Xah's behaviour is probably impossible. >> >>Perhaps somebody could ask the chinese government to put him in jail >>for "hurting international society" :) > > > That's going to be tough because, according to his web page, he's > living in a Honda Civic somewhere in Illinois, USA. Oh, not to fear, we have The Patriots Act, if Dubbya was an Emacs fan Xah would be tanning nicely already at Gitmo. kzo -- http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/ "Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
"Lew" ranted maniacally: >> Y'know, even in jest, calling for an oppressive regime to suppress even >> wrong-headed and self-serving garbage self-expression is immoral and >> horrible. How dare you? >> >> Free speech, free press and free expression of ideas is not something to >> take so lightly. Bruce C. Baker wrote: > That's right! Momma don't allow no levity around here! > > Off with Markus' head! :-D As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the company generally, `You are all pardoned.' `Come, THAT'S a good thing!' she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered. - /Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/, Lewis Carroll -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
"Lew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Markus E Leypold >>> Trying to correct Xah's behaviour is probably impossible. > > Ingo Menger wrote: >> Perhaps somebody could ask the chinese government to put him in jail >> for "hurting international society" :) > > Y'know, even in jest, calling for an oppressive regime to suppress even > wrong-headed and self-serving garbage self-expression is immoral and > horrible. How dare you? > > Free speech, free press and free expression of ideas is not something to > take so lightly. That's right! Momma don't allow no levity around here! Off with Markus' head! :-D > > -- > Lew -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
On 17 Apr 2007 08:20:24 -0700, Ingo Menger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On 17 Apr., 12:33, Markus E Leypold ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> What makes Xah a troll is neither off-topic posts nor being >> incoherent -- its the attitude. He's broadcasting his drivel to a >> number of groups not with the intention to discuss (he hardly ever >> answers to answers to his posts), but solely with the intention to >> inform the world at large about his own magnificient thoughts. > >This hits the nail on the head. >Perhaps one could understand this behaviour on cultural grounds. In >chinese culture it may be not uncommon to write something that merely >sounds like great wisdom and it is nevertheless appreciated because >it's a piece of calligraphic art. > >> Trying to correct Xah's behaviour is probably impossible. > >Perhaps somebody could ask the chinese government to put him in jail >for "hurting international society" :) That's going to be tough because, according to his web page, he's living in a Honda Civic somewhere in Illinois, USA. http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Personal_dir/xah.html George -- for email reply remove "/" from address -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Markus E Leypold >> Trying to correct Xah's behaviour is probably impossible. Ingo Menger wrote: > Perhaps somebody could ask the chinese government to put him in jail > for "hurting international society" :) Y'know, even in jest, calling for an oppressive regime to suppress even wrong-headed and self-serving garbage self-expression is immoral and horrible. How dare you? Free speech, free press and free expression of ideas is not something to take so lightly. -- Lew -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
On 17 Apr., 12:33, Markus E Leypold <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What makes Xah a troll is neither off-topic posts nor being > incoherent -- its the attitude. He's broadcasting his drivel to a > number of groups not with the intention to discuss (he hardly ever > answers to answers to his posts), but solely with the intention to > inform the world at large about his own magnificient thoughts. This hits the nail on the head. Perhaps one could understand this behaviour on cultural grounds. In chinese culture it may be not uncommon to write something that merely sounds like great wisdom and it is nevertheless appreciated because it's a piece of calligraphic art. > Trying to correct Xah's behaviour is probably impossible. Perhaps somebody could ask the chinese government to put him in jail for "hurting international society" :) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
On 4/17/07, Mirco Wahab <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The reason why I answered your posting at all (besides > seeing your x-post going into 5 ng's) is your mentioning > of 'God'. According to christian tradition (which is > somehow on topic in a Perl group) it is exactly the > case of Jesus (imho), who was (in his context) the > "/Do you really want to look like a dolt in public/" > man par excellance. Socrates also comes into the mind ;-) Fits George W. Bush too. -- mvh Björn -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:58:52 -0400, D Herring
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>- Please topquote snippets from the threads about which you are commenting.
>
>- Please set your newsreader to prepend "Re: " or somesuch when replying
>to a toplevel post.
>
>- Please don't preach about "meta-talk and policing" in a post which is
>mostly meta-talk and preaching.
FYI "Please" is probably a word that XL ignores completely. Thus do
what most humans in their sane state of mind would do. Killfile it. If
for some reason you can't, then ignore it. Certainly, do not feed it.
Michele
--
{$_=pack'B8'x25,unpack'A8'x32,$a^=sub{pop^pop}->(map substr
(($a||=join'',map--$|x$_,(unpack'w',unpack'u','G^http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Markus E Leypold wrote: > Trying to correct Xah's behaviour is probably impossible. People who > publish pictures of themselves as he does on the WWW probably don't > have any sense of embarrasment left ... you think of stuff like this www DOT m-e-leypold DOT de SLASH leypold-small.jpg ;-) > -- and I consider that a necessary > part in the feedback loop which makes people change: "Look what you > did! Do you really want to look like a dolt in public?" "Umpf. No. God > that was embarrasing" such a situation again>. The reason why I answered your posting at all (besides seeing your x-post going into 5 ng's) is your mentioning of 'God'. According to christian tradition (which is somehow on topic in a Perl group) it is exactly the case of Jesus (imho), who was (in his context) the "/Do you really want to look like a dolt in public/" man par excellance. Socrates also comes into the mind ;-) AFAIK - both were symptoms of the decline of their societies at the time ... Regards & sorry for scnr'ing Mirco remember - f'up to: comp.lang.perl.misc -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Ingo Menger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On 16 Apr., 23:01, "Xah Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> If your article is relevant to X, Y, and Z, >> please cross post it. > > Yeah right, and if it is not, don't post it at all. Your articles are > nothing but a bunch of unfounded allegations, moralism and your > personal notion of what alledgedly "hurts society". As such, they have > no relevance at all in technical news groups. But we already had of topic discussions in some of those groups (meandering into the non technical) that weren't stomped upon by the group's subscribers. The difference in my eyes is, that Xah is a troll. What makes Xah a troll is neither off-topic posts nor being incoherent -- its the attitude. He's broadcasting his drivel to a number of groups not with the intention to discuss (he hardly ever answers to answers to his posts), but solely with the intention to inform the world at large about his own magnificient thoughts. As also evidenced by reposting some of his stuff (as if he had a fan community or as if it were a FAQ) or posting stuff dated from 2002. Trying to correct Xah's behaviour is probably impossible. People who publish pictures of themselves as he does on the WWW probably don't have any sense of embarrasment left -- and I consider that a necessary part in the feedback loop which makes people change: "Look what you did! Do you really want to look like a dolt in public?" "Umpf. No. God that was embarrasing" . But that won't happen to Xah. Regards -- Markus -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
On 16 Apr., 23:01, "Xah Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If your article is relevant to X, Y, and Z, > please cross post it. Yeah right, and if it is not, don't post it at all. Your articles are nothing but a bunch of unfounded allegations, moralism and your personal notion of what alledgedly "hurts society". As such, they have no relevance at all in technical news groups. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
"Xah Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > • Please remind yourself what is on-topic and off-topic. Unless you You, Sir, ARE off-topic. I suggest you make the experiment to post your drivel on your web site and let your fans come to you. Should be an eye opener, this experiment. Regards -- Markus -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
[OT] Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Xah Lee wrote: > In a couple of posts in the past year i have crossed-posted (e.g. > recently “What are OOP's Jargons and Complexities”, “is laziness a > programer's virtue?”, “On Java's Interface (the meaning of interface > in computer programing)” ), there are a some controversy, and lots of > off-topic and careless follow ups. Please don't dismiss so many posts as being "off-topic and careless". > I think a few things today's tech geekers should remind themselves: > > • If you deem something off-topic to “your” newsgroup, and want to > tech-geek by changing the “follow-up group”, start with yourself. > Please do not cross-post yourself, and tweak the follow-up, and > proudly proclaim that you changed the follow-up as a benign gesture. ... A few more points: - I know many geeks but not so many geekers... http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=geeker - Please topquote snippets from the threads about which you are commenting. - Please set your newsreader to prepend "Re: " or somesuch when replying to a toplevel post. - Please don't preach about "meta-talk and policing" in a post which is mostly meta-talk and preaching. Thanks, Daniel -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
is laziness a programer's virtue?
2007-03-29 Dear tech geekers, In a couple of posts in the past year i have crossed-posted (e.g. recently “What are OOP's Jargons and Complexities”, “is laziness a programer's virtue?”, “On Java's Interface (the meaning of interface in computer programing)” ), there are a some controversy, and lots of off-topic and careless follow ups. I think a few things today's tech geekers should remind themselves: • If you deem something off-topic to “your” newsgroup, and want to tech-geek by changing the “follow-up group”, start with yourself. Please do not cross-post yourself, and tweak the follow-up, and proudly proclaim that you changed the follow-up as a benign gesture. • Please remind yourself what is on-topic and off-topic. Unless you are the auhority of a online forum, otherwise, Meta-talk, and policing, are off-topic in general, and only tends to worsen the forum's quality. This issue is cleared up in online communications as early as early 1990s. • The facility of cross-posting is a good thing as a progress of communication technology, and the action of cross-posting is a good thing with respect to communication. What the common tech-geekers's sensitivity to cross-posting are due to this collective's lack of understanding of social aspects of communication. Cross-posting isn't a problem. The problem is the power-struggling male nature and defensiveness in propergating the tongues of a tech geeker's own. Tech-geeker's behavior towards cross-posting over the years did nothing to enhance the content quality of newsgroups, but engendered among computing language factions incommunicado, and aided in the proliferation of unnecessary re-invention (e.g. the likes of Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby that are essentially the same) and stagnation (e.g. the lisp camp with their above-it attitude). If you are a programer of X and is learning Y or wondering about Y, please do cross-post it. If your article is relevant to X, Y, and Z, please cross post it. If you are really anti-cross-posting, please use a online forum that is more specialized with controlled communication, such as mailing lists, developer's blogs, and website- based forums. I hope that the computing newsgroups will revive to its ancient nature of verdant cross communication of quality content, as opposed to today's rampant messages focused on politics, mutual sneering, closed- mindedness, and careless postings. References: “Tech Geekers versus Spammers” http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/tech_geekers_vs_spammers.html Netiquette Guidelines, 1995, by S Hambridge. (RFC 1855) http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855 Xah [EMAIL PROTECTED] ∑ http://xahlee.org/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rob Warnock) writes: > Daniel Gee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > +--- > | You fail to understand the difference between passive laziness and > | active laziness. Passive laziness is what most people have. It's > | active laziness that is the virtue. It's the desire to go out and / > | make sure/ that you can be lazy in the future by spending just a > | little time writing a script now. It's thinking about time > | economically and acting on it. > +--- > > Indeed. See Robert A. Heinlein's short story (well, actually just > a short section of his novel "Time Enough For Love: The Lives of > Lazarus Long") entitled "The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy To > Fail". It's about a man who hated work so much that he worked > very, *very* hard so he wouldn't have to do any (and succeeded). You can also argue that the essence of progress is someone saying "Hey, there must be an easier way to do this!". Torben -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Dan Bensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Xah Lee wrote: >> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall >> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said âThe three chief virtues of a >> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubrisâ, he used the word >> âlazinessâ to loosely imply ânatural disposition that results in being >> economicâ. > > Programming by definition is the process of automating repetitive > actions to reduce the human effort required to perform them. A good > programmer faced with a hard problem always looks for ways to make > his|her job easier by delegating work to a computer. That's what > Larry means. Automation is MUCH more effective than repetition. Indeed. A programmer is someone who, after doing similar tasks by hand a few times, writes a program to do it. This extends to programming tasks, so after writing similar programs a few times, a (good) programmer will use programming to make writing future similar programs easier. This can be by abstracting the essence of the task into library functions so new programs are just sequences of parameterized calls to these, or it can be by writing a program generator (such as a parser generator) or it can be by designing a domain-specific language and writing a compiler or interpreter for this. Torben -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Daniel Gee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: +--- | You fail to understand the difference between passive laziness and | active laziness. Passive laziness is what most people have. It's | active laziness that is the virtue. It's the desire to go out and / | make sure/ that you can be lazy in the future by spending just a | little time writing a script now. It's thinking about time | economically and acting on it. +--- Indeed. See Robert A. Heinlein's short story (well, actually just a short section of his novel "Time Enough For Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long") entitled "The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy To Fail". It's about a man who hated work so much that he worked very, *very* hard so he wouldn't have to do any (and succeeded). -Rob - Rob Warnock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 627 26th Avenue http://rpw3.org/> San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Blatherskite! http://innovators.vassar.edu/innovator.html?id=8 http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/comment/2160655/laziness-mother-invention -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Some entity, AKA [EMAIL PROTECTED], wrote this mindboggling stuff: (selectively-snipped-or-not-p) > Of course, for functional languages, 'lazy' means something rather > different... > lazy means: just get a post-grad to do the grunt-work for free. Cor -- The biggest problem LISP has is that it does not appeal to dumb people If this failed to satisfy you try reading the Hyper-Spec or woman frig (defvar MyComputer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux"))) Read the mailpolicy before mailing http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.html -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Of course, for functional languages, 'lazy' means something rather different... -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Xah Lee wrote: > Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall > > Xah Lee, 20021124 > > In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful > thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some > clarifications. > > American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as: > “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.” > > When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a > programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word > “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being > economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is > clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that > results in economy” is a good thing if true. > > When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants > the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following > proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human > disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being > economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness > may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement > is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that > can be applied to a group of people such as programers. > > Demagogue Larry Wall is smart in creating a confusion combined with > wishful thinking. By making subtle statements like this, he semi- > intentionally confuses average programers to think that it is OK to be > not thorough, it is OK to be sloppy, it is OK to disparage computer > science. (like the incompetent unixers and perlers are) > > Can you see the evil and its harm in not understanding things clearly? > This laziness quote by Wall is a tremendous damage to the computing > industry. It is a source among others that spurs much bad fashion > trends and fuckups in the industry. It is more damaging than any > single hack or virus. It is social brain-washing at work, like the > diamond company De Beers' tremendously successful sales slogan: “A > Diamond is Forever” or Apple's grammatically fantastic “Think > Different”. > > The most fundamental explanation of why Larry Wall's sophistry are > damaging to society is simply this: What he said is not true and they > are widely spread and conceived as worthwhile. This is a form of mis- > information. This is a manifestation of Love without Knowledge as i > expounded before, with subtle but disastrous consequences (already). > > [DISCLAIMER: all mentions of real persons are opinion only.] > > > This post is archived at: > http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/perl_laziness.html > > Xah > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ∑ http://xahlee.org/ > Laziness is re-posting something dated 2002. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Xah Lee wrote: > [SOME FURTHER TROLLING DISTRIBUTED TO MULTIPLE NEWSGROUPS] For those who are relatively new here in comp.lang.python and not aware of the troll: It seems, that Xah still haven't learned from the impact of past abuse reports on his Internet access and tries again to pollute Usenet after a longer time of inactivity. Claudio Grondi -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Xah Lee wrote: > Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall > > Xah Lee, 20021124 > > In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful > thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some > clarifications. Years ago I used to work with someone who used to say 'I'm a lazy person - I like to do things the easy way!'. I guess this is what Larry Wall means. Jim Ford -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Dear Ken, I want to thank you for your spirit in supporting and leading the lisp community, in spreading lisp the language both in what you have done technically as well as evangelization, as well as the love and knowledge attitude towards newsgroup communities in general, in part thru your numerous replies to my posts in the past years. (as opposed to, the motherfucking pack of driveling and fuckface ignoramuses that are predominate personalities in newsgroups, including some of the fucking asshole intolerant bigwigs in the lisp newsgroup who think themselves as the holder of justice and goodness (which has contributed significantly to the stagnation of lisp).) Thank you. For those reading this, i also want to mention, that although i think Perl is a motherfucking language on earth, and its leader and “inventor” Larry Wall has done massive damage to the computing world, but Perl the community is in fact very tolerant in general (which is to Larry's credit), when compared to the motherfucking Pythoners (who knew SHIT) as well as many of the self-appointed lisp bigwig characters. [disclaimer: my statement about Larry Wall is opinion only.] With Knowledge, and, Love. Xah [EMAIL PROTECTED] ∑ http://xahlee.org/ On Apr 15, 10:36 am, Ken Tilton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > XahLeewrote: > > Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall > > >XahLee, 20021124 > > > In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful > > thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some > > clarifications. > > > American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as: > > “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.” > > > When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a > > programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word > > “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being > > economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is > > clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that > > results in economy” is a good thing if true. > > > When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants > > the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following > > proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human > > disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being > > economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness > > may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement > > is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that > > can be applied to a group of people such as programers. > > Xah, you are losing your sense of humor. Wall listed the usually > pejorative "lazy" as a virtue simply to grab the reader, make them > think, and simply to entertain better. Surely The GreatXahunderstands > the virtue of flamboyant writing and does not want every word yanked > from context and slid under the microscope for dissection. > > kzo -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:25:19 +0200, Xah Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall > > Xah Lee, 20021124 > > In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful > thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some > clarifications. > > American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as: > “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.” > In this context I think you can safely take it to mean: Don't work hard, work smart. Avoid repetitious work. If somthing seems to elaborate find a more efficient way. In a course I took on verifiable programming I found working with Hoare logic extremely tedious. So I started using rewriting loops as recursive procedures and using induction instead. It took about a quarter of the time as the invariant of a loop fell out rather naturally this way. I failed the course, but when I took the course over again a year later I noticed that the book had been rewritten and now half the book was dedicated to Generator Induction. (Seems the professor noticed I failed in a interesting way and figured out it was not so stupid after all.) Naturally I had no problems the second time ;) This is just one example but it should convey the idea. -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
On Apr 15, 6:25 pm, "Xah Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall > > Xah Lee, 20021124 > > In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful > thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some > clarifications. > > American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as: > “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.” > > When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a > programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word > “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being > economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is > clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that > results in economy” is a good thing if true. > > When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants > the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following > proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human > disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being > economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness > may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement > is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that > can be applied to a group of people such as programers. > > Demagogue Larry Wall is smart in creating a confusion combined with > wishful thinking. By making subtle statements like this, he semi- > intentionally confuses average programers to think that it is OK to be > not thorough, it is OK to be sloppy, it is OK to disparage computer > science. (like the incompetent unixers and perlers are) > > Can you see the evil and its harm in not understanding things clearly? > This laziness quote by Wall is a tremendous damage to the computing > industry. It is a source among others that spurs much bad fashion > trends and fuckups in the industry. It is more damaging than any > single hack or virus. It is social brain-washing at work, like the > diamond company De Beers' tremendously successful sales slogan: “A > Diamond is Forever” or Apple's grammatically fantastic “Think > Different”. > > The most fundamental explanation of why Larry Wall's sophistry are > damaging to society is simply this: What he said is not true and they > are widely spread and conceived as worthwhile. This is a form of mis- > information. This is a manifestation of Love without Knowledge as i > expounded before, with subtle but disastrous consequences (already). > > [DISCLAIMER: all mentions of real persons are opinion only.] > > > This post is archived > at:http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/perl_laziness.html > > Xah > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ∑http://xahlee.org/ I like Larry Wall, despite being not a Perl programmer, and when he secretly subverts the american, protestant working ethos I like him even better :) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
You fail to understand the difference between passive laziness and active laziness. Passive laziness is what most people have. It's active laziness that is the virtue. It's the desire to go out and / make sure/ that you can be lazy in the future by spending just a little time writing a script now. It's thinking about time economically and acting on it. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Xah Lee wrote: > Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall > When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a > programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word > “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being > economic”. Programming by definition is the process of automating repetitive actions to reduce the human effort required to perform them. A good programmer faced with a hard problem always looks for ways to make his|her job easier by delegating work to a computer. That's what Larry means. Automation is MUCH more effective than repetition. -- Dan www.prairienet.org/~dsb/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
is laziness a programer's virtue?
Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall Xah Lee, 20021124 In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some clarifications. American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as: “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.” When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that results in economy” is a good thing if true. When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that can be applied to a group of people such as programers. Demagogue Larry Wall is smart in creating a confusion combined with wishful thinking. By making subtle statements like this, he semi- intentionally confuses average programers to think that it is OK to be not thorough, it is OK to be sloppy, it is OK to disparage computer science. (like the incompetent unixers and perlers are) Can you see the evil and its harm in not understanding things clearly? This laziness quote by Wall is a tremendous damage to the computing industry. It is a source among others that spurs much bad fashion trends and fuckups in the industry. It is more damaging than any single hack or virus. It is social brain-washing at work, like the diamond company De Beers' tremendously successful sales slogan: “A Diamond is Forever” or Apple's grammatically fantastic “Think Different”. The most fundamental explanation of why Larry Wall's sophistry are damaging to society is simply this: What he said is not true and they are widely spread and conceived as worthwhile. This is a form of mis- information. This is a manifestation of Love without Knowledge as i expounded before, with subtle but disastrous consequences (already). [DISCLAIMER: all mentions of real persons are opinion only.] This post is archived at: http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/perl_laziness.html Xah [EMAIL PROTECTED] ∑ http://xahlee.org/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
