On 10/30/2013 04:22 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 13:00:07 -0700, rurpy wrote: >> On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 8:08:16 AM UTC-6, Steven D'Aprano wrote: >>> On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 12:37:36 +0100, Skybuck Flying wrote: >>>[...] >>> Skybuck, please excuse my question, but have you ever done any >>> programming at all? You don't seem to have any experience with actual >>> programming languages. >>>[...] >>> Wait until you actually start programming before deciding what makes >>> sense or doesn't. >> >> Couldn't you have simply made your points without the above comments? >> Those points stand perfectly fine on their own without the ad hominem >> attack. > > Not every observation about a person is "ad hominem", let alone an > attack, even if they are uncomplimentary. You are mistaken to identify > such observations as both. > > "Ad hominem" is the standard term for a logical fallacy, whereby a claim > is rejected solely because of *irrelevant personal characteristics* of > the person making the claim [...] > > Skybuck's experience at programming *is relevant* to the question of > whether or not he understands what he is talking about.
No. You claimed his proposition "made no sense" based on your analysis of it. You then used your conclusion to claim he has no programming experience. You can not then use that latter claim to support the argument that his proposition makes no sense. (That is circular.) His programming experience is a personal characteristic, and (limiting ourself to your arguments), can conclude inexperience only if we've already accepted your conclusion that his proposal is nutty, so his experience seems irrelevant to me. Hence it meets your definition of an ad hominem argument. Secondly, the example ad hominem argument you gave, "Clearly Julie is mistaken, she's just a girl, what would she know about programming?" depends on the non-validity of the logical implication. Yet I'm sure you are aware that are some people who would find that a valid implication and if you could not defend it, then you would not be able to claim ad hominem. Of course it *is* easily defendable which is why you used it as an example. But in your reply to Skybuck, the implication is "nutty proposal" -> inexperience. Yet we frequently see highly educated and experienced people who support nutty ideas all the time, things like homeopathic medicine or psychic abilities. So I think your claim that you were not using an ad hominem argument is weak on that ground too. (Even if none of the above were true, I would still ask, why shouldn't someone's opinion on a programming topic stand on their arguments alone without regard to whether they've written code on a physical machine?) > If you consider that merely suggesting that somebody is not experienced > at programming counts as an attack, well, words fail me. You didn't "merely suggest", you claimed it to be true: "Wait until you actually start programming before deciding what makes sense or doesn't." >[...] > I think it is quite unfair of you to misrepresent my post as an attack, > particularly since my reply gave an example of a type of loop that > supports Skybuck's position. It wasn't unfair because it wasn't a misrepresentation. Your irrelevant speculation about programming experience when the issue he brought up was constructs for loops would raise most people's hackles who offered their opinion in good faith. Further, quoting from his original post, "(after having some experience with python which lacks repeat until/goto/labels and programming game bots)" you are also implying he is a liar. So yes, it certainly is fair to describe your response as an attack. Given that your speculation added nothing to the reasonable part of your response (which as I said was perfectly fine on it's own) and likely served only to antagonize, why add it? (Unless of course you enjoy a good flame-fest like so many of the resident trolls here.) -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
