why ; ?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Yigal Chripun" <yigal100 at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g0156n$lj6$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote in message
>> news:g003u3$1g02$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>> "Yigal Chripun" <yigal100 at gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:fvvtu6$16tq$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>> Where in my post did you read that I said "[we should] go around
>>>> assuming that all opposing viewpoints are always equally valid"? I know
>>>> what I wrote and that ain't it.
>>>>
>>> Where in my post did you read that I said "You said that we should go
>>> around assuming that all opposing viewpoints are always equally valid"? 
>>> ;)
>>>
>>> But you did say "this whole thread is ridiculous", even though we
>>> discussed other issues besides "semicolon-oriented language" vs.
>>> "newline-oriented language". If you really meant just the particular
>>> branch of the thread you replied to and not actually the whole thread,
>>> then ok, fair enough.
>>>
>>>> If you decide to discuss next which editor is better: vi[m] or emacs
>>>> (since as you say, this is "potentially helpful/productive" in your
>>>> opinion) than count me out since yet again this comes down to personal
>>>> preference.
>>> Sure. After all, nobody would say that you were obligated to 
>>> participate.
>>> Feel free to pick and choose which discussions you wish to participate 
>>> in.
>>> I do that, just as I image most of the others here do.
>>>
>>>> PS: it's amazing how such smart people can waste so much time and 
>>>> energy
>>>> debating such unimportant issues as the semicolon at the end of
>>>> statements with such a passion.
>>> One could make the same claim about meta-debates, such as this. (I'm not
>>> actually making that claim though. I don't personally mind the 
>>> occasional
>>> meta-debate.)
>>>
>>> Besides, I think it's good to periodically challenge, and be challenged
>>> by, each others viewpoints. This way we don't stagnate, isolated in the
>>> world of our own preferences, possibly even blind to the occasional
>>> mistaken assumption. For all I know, someone might say something that
>>> makes me think of Python in a new way and I decide "Wow, this is my new
>>> preference. I like Python better than D. If I had just agreed to 
>>> disagree
>>> then my eyes never would have been opened to this."
>>>
>>> As real-world examples, when I first started reading about Python, I had 
>>> a
>>> knee-jerk reaction and decided "this is garbage, I'm not going near it",
>>> and that was that. But a couple weeks ago I was talking to a friend who
>>> liked Python, we disagreed, but still discussed, and I realized that
>>> Python did have some good functional-ish features - things that even my
>>> favorite language, D, could use to borrow. And I also came to the
>>> conclusion that it really wouldn't kill me, at the very least, to write 
>>> a
>>> quck little prototype, script, etc., in Python every now and then. All
>>> this even though I still consider, for example, the rationale behind
>>> Python's indentation to be logically flawed and inappropriate for large
>>> projects. In much the same way, my friend ended up getting interested in 
>>> D
>>> (To paraphrase: "Wow, a static typed, non-VM language without the muss 
>>> and
>>> fuss of C/C++, who knew?").
>>>
>>> If we had just decided "these are matters of preference, discussing it 
>>> is
>>> ridiculous", and avoided what seemed like a pointless discussion, then
>>> where would we both be right now? Sitting in our own happy ignorance.
>>>
>>
>> I just re-read what I wrote here and realized it came across a little bit
>> hippy-ish. Anybody: feel free to sprinkle in a few "fuck"s or "damnit"s 
>> as
>> you read it. ;)
>>
>>
>
> I'm glad that you realize that I was talking about "semicolon-oriented
> language" vs. "newline-oriented language". I never said we shouldn't
> discuss python vs. D which (again) was not discussed in this thread.
> this very long discussion was about the semicolon and you already know
> what I think of such discussions.
>
> Your post actually proves my original post. If you read it again you
> would realize that I said that I prefer to use the right tool for the
> job, be it D, python or even VB (ok, I would probably would never use VB
> if I can help it ;) ).

Agreed on VB ;)

Not everyone always agrees what the right tool for a given job is. But the 
problem is: even when preference plays a large part, it isn't always due 
100% to preference. For instance, sometimes a mistaken assumption may have 
slipped in, or an oversight. We don't know if it really is purely 
preference, or if faulty reasoning has managed to slip in until 
it's...discussed.

> Also, there's was link to a wiki page about the
> Sapir hypothesis in there. Sapir is a linguist and he noticed that the
> language used by a people affects their way of thinking. Applying this
> to our discussion means that a C/C++ programmer "thinks" in a C/C++ way
> and it would be harder for him to understand python vs D. Hence your
> knee jerk reaction to Python as you stated above.

A knee-jerk reaction which I then (at least partially) overcame 
through...discussion. The Sapir hypothesis doesn't mean that we should just 
stick to our native language and avoid comparing/contrasting languages. But 
what it does mean that we're naturally blind to the pros/cons of that which 
we are unfamiliar with. Avoiding discussion allows this natural ignorance to 
persist, while participating in discussion helps to dispell it.