[Addendum #2] ============================================================ WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE "SEMANTIC WARS"? ============================================================
I've always believed in the philosophy of: "Responsibility to the responsible". After reading that statement, a person might think that the ultimate responsibility for bad code composition is the programmer, but if you've come that conclusion, it's obvious you only understand *superficially* what the statement means. Later i will enlighten you on who is directly responsible for bad code, but first, let's go on a slight tangent to gain some context. A celebrity by the name of "Philip Seymour Hoffman" was recently in the news. For those of you who don't know, he died of a illegal drug overdose. Personally i never knew much of the guy until his name was all over news. And i really don't care that he's dead or alive -- i'm quite indifferent on the subject. But he provides us with a great example of "responsibility to the responsible". Before proceeding i must underscore that i personally feel prohibition of any substances is counterproductive to free societies. I don't use any substances myself, but if other people enjoy drinking "Drain-O", who am *I* to stop them? They are only hurting themselves. SO WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR "Hoffman's" DEATH? Not long after the "celeb" croaked, the police and media were pounding the war drums to find the "despicable" drug dealer who killed Mr. Hoffman. The police even claimed to be "casting a wide net" and that this drug dealer was going to be "punished severely". Hmm, i wonder if they would have gone to all that trouble for "Joe Crackhead"? FREAKING HYPOCRITES! What did the dealer do? All he did was to provide a grown man with a substance that the man wanted. Hoffman knew damn good and well that cocaine and heroin were deadly, yet, he made the conscience choice to ingest them -- so i argue he got what he deserved! As a "freedom fan-boy", i fully support my fellow citizens right to harm themselves, but don't expect me to waste one second of pity on a dead drug addict! SO YOU"RE SAYING THAT PROGRAMMERS ARE RESPONSIBLE? No, i'm saying the opposite! While the sole blame for willfully injecting toxins should be on the drug user and not the dealer, the sole blame for bad code in the wild is NOT the programmer, but the the language designer himself. WHAT? HOW DO YOU RESOLVE SUCH LOGIC? Because drug-use harms *ONLY* those who choose to ingest the drugs, whereas bad code harms *EVERYONE* in the coding community -- and even those outside the community! EVER HEARD OF M$? I can write all the good code i want, but if you choose to write bad code then your code is going to reduce the "collective quality" of *all* code. And worse, if i'm forced to maintain your spaghetti CRAP, i will suffer from your mistakes. AND *I* SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SUFFER FOR *YOUR* MISTAKES! You see, this is yet another example of how the "degenerates" never suffer. They just keep pumping out garbage that the rest of us are forced to eat. And why should they stop? Language designers should take a lesson from evolution. Evolution does not suffer the weak nor does it have pity for the stupid. Evolution is only concerned with the process of "self perfection". It will cast off *any* weight that is holding it down. It will cull *any* entity that does not possess traits of the highest quality currently available. LANGUAGE DESIGNERS SHOULD NOT DEAL IN "PITY" Instead of giving programmers tools for which to slow and even destroy the collective evolution of code, language designers should use programmers as pawns as part of a "collective mind-hive" who will evolve the collective code base along a strait and narrow path, a path that leads to perfection, but that *never* allows attaining it! THAT COOKIE JAR SHOULD ALWAYS BE *JUUUUST* OUTSIDE ARMS LENGTH! -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list