Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes

[Didier Morandi]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA

Max M wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Peter Hickman wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> People who whine on about 'top posting' are the sort of people who
>>> draft 'clean desk' policies. If you want to whine about top posting
>>> then start alt.whine.top.p osting and have fun.[/color][/color]
>
> That is not quite right. Using top posting forces every reader to
> unlearn a lifetime of knowledge about narrative flow in content.[/color]

(ages since I jumped into a troll... :-)

What against-top-posting people do not WANT to understand is that the very first
interest of posting is, to me, to get help or information.

So, you post your question and, by definition, you remember what it was (well, I
hope so).

Then, you go back to the ng the day after and if you got an answer, you are
interested in the answer, not to reread your post.

I do not read answers to questions I did not post, so I don't care about
"unlearn a lifetime of knowledge about narrative flow in content".

Period.

But as I try to be a gentleman, I did not top-post my post :-)

D.
Toulouse
Auto elected President of the Top Posting Liberation Army

[Stefan Axelsson]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA [was : Prothon Prototypes vs PythonClasses]

Michael wrote:
[color=blue]
> With top posting you're still reading the same way. You shouldn't even
> need to read the quoted text below.[/color]

Then why waste space and bandwidth and include it?
[color=blue]
> It's only there to help keep the
> structure of the conversation recorded.[/color]

If you need to refresh your memory on the discussion then back up the
thread and read the previous messages. A whole keypress in most readers.

And that's saying nothing of rendering the information that's given by
the line count of the posting useless. Many readers display the line
count with the subject, and that gives you a clue as to how 'heavy' the
posting is going to be. Just a short rebuttal, a 'me too', or a
dissertation in it's own right? It's impossible to tell when people
include the particular version of the King James' bible they're
commenting on.

As I'm against capital punishement; twentyfive to life for top-posters,
I say.

Stefan,
--
Stefan Axelsson (email at http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~sax)

[Michael]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA [was : Prothon Prototypes vs PythonClasses]

[color=blue]
> Then why waste space and bandwidth and include it?[/color]

Because it provides contunity?
[color=blue]
> If you need to refresh your memory on the discussion then back up the
> thread and read the previous messages. A whole keypress in most readers.[/color]

Which is fine except that often threads go in mupltiple directions and
have multiple people conversing such that without quoted text a reader
may be unsure what and who was being responded to.
[color=blue]
> And that's saying nothing of rendering the information that's given by
> the line count of the posting useless. Many readers display the line
> count with the subject, and that gives you a clue as to how 'heavy'
> the posting is going to be. Just a short rebuttal, a 'me too', or a
> dissertation in it's own right? It's impossible to tell when people
> include the particular version of the King James' bible they're
> commenting on.[/color]

Which is why it's helpful to clip your quoted material to what is needed
to be informative and that is all. It might be a good feature if you
made an option in your mail program not to count quoted lines. Should't
be to hard to implement.

[Ville Vainio]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA

>>>>> "Didier" == Didier Morandi <no@spam.com> writes:

Didier> I do not read answers to questions I did not post, so I don't care
Didier> about "unlearn a lifetime of knowledge about narrative flow in
Didier> content".

So essentially Usenet should be a free Q&A automaton, where people
post questions and Usenet fairies go around answering them? Everybody
takes, nobody gives? I believe such service should cost you money...

Note that many read the newsgroup w/o having any questions of their
own, perhaps wanting to learn from the questions of others or see if
there is some interesting discussion going on. Top posting kills all
that.

It surprises me how much flammage people need before correcting the
error of their ways these days. Top posting might be forgivable for a
newbie/grandmother who is just trying his hand w/ Usenet for the first
time, but repeat offenders should be reprimanded.

--
Ville Vainio http://tinyurl.com/2prnb

[Andrew Bennetts]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 12:30:23PM +0200, Didier Morandi wrote:[color=blue]
> Max M wrote:
>[color=green]
> >That is not quite right. Using top posting forces every reader to
> >unlearn a lifetime of knowledge about narrative flow in content.[/color]
>
> (ages since I jumped into a troll... :-)
>
> What against-top-posting people do not WANT to understand is that the very
> first interest of posting is, to me, to get help or information.[/color]

My mail reader (I'm using the mailing-list gateway for comp.lang.pytho n, but
this applies equally well to usenet readers) highlights quoted and
non-quoted text in different colours (in case the ">" aren't distinctive
enough already for you!). I find my eye jumps directly to the fresh text
just fine, *and* when people snip text and bottom-post, I still get a
coherent, sensible, intuitively-ordered view of the conversation (not to
mention a seperate pane showing this messages position in the overall
thread).

It's the best of both worlds, but it's ruined by top-posters.
[color=blue]
> So, you post your question and, by definition, you remember what it was
> (well, I hope so).
>
> Then, you go back to the ng the day after and if you got an answer, you are
> interested in the answer, not to reread your post.[/color]

One of the great features of newsgroups (and mailing-lists) is their ability
to support multiple concurrent conversations -- and that's just within a
single group/list. I subscribe to a lot of mailing lists. It's nice to
have a contextual reminder of what the thing you're reading right now was
related to.

You are also presupposing a very limited question-answer format for usenet,
which is certainly not the only form of communication I see here.
[color=blue]
> I do not read answers to questions I did not post, so I don't care about
> "unlearn a lifetime of knowledge about narrative flow in content".
>
> Period.[/color]

Then why are you reading this thread? ;)

-Andrew.

[John Roth]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA


"Didier Morandi" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
news:c4e6jv$10t e$1@biggoron.ne rim.net...[color=blue]
>
> What against-top-posting people do not WANT to understand is that the very[/color]
first[color=blue]
> interest of posting is, to me, to get help or information.
>
> So, you post your question and, by definition, you remember what it was[/color]
(well, I[color=blue]
> hope so).
>
> Then, you go back to the ng the day after and if you got an answer, you[/color]
are[color=blue]
> interested in the answer, not to reread your post.[/color]

That's a very good point. One of the forums I read is Baen's Bar
(Baen Publishing) where the publisher has an ironclad rule that
responses to him *must* be top posted. He is absolutely not
going to hit the page down button to see whether there was
anything interesting in the response. If he doesn't see it where
his eyes are pointing, it might as well not exist. I suspect it's the
only way he gets through his mail to get anything done.

AFAIC, it doesn't matter whether you put your response at the
top or bottom; what matters to me is whether I can find what
you're talking about quickly. That means ruthless pruning of the
post so that old stuff gets deleted.

John Roth

[Stephen Horne]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA [was : Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 02:31:08 -0800, Michael
<mogmios@mlug.m issouri.edu> wrote:
[color=blue]
>top.
>to
>bottom
>read
>to
>learn
>to
>you
>forcing
>be
>would
>this
>No,[/color]

This is actually better than top-posting. At least the reading
direction is _consistently_ upwards, rather than requiring people to
leap forwards and back through the post in a desperate attempt to find
the clues they need.


--
Steve Horne

steve at ninereeds dot fsnet dot co dot uk

[Mike Pelletier]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA

I find it surprising to see programmers arguing for top-posting. They
are arguing that exchanging the single author's time and brain cycles
for the time and cycles of many readers is a good trade-off. Perhaps
they just feel their time is infinitely more valuable than anyone
else's. I'm sure every top-poster present can think of vendors who
work from the point of view that their time and effort is more
valuable than the user's. The result of this philosophy is alienating
to users of software AND articles.

Didier Morandi said that the greatest reason for posting is so one may
"get help or information". I don't think that's really so, I think
that sould be further generalized to, one posts to communicate. If
one's goal is to communicate (perhaps to communicate a question, but
whatever), why wouldn't one stress clarity to the reader above
convenience to the author?

Top-posting is a mildly offensive presumption viewed in this light,
like telemarketing or squeegee kids.

Mike.

[R Baumann]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA [was : Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes]

I belong to several newsgroups, some prefer top-posting, and some prefer
bottom posting. A few posters will spend the time to intersperse their
replies. And a few will even split a post into additional posts to reply
specifically to each question or comment that was made in a previous
post(pretty anal). Personally, I don't care how you post, it doesn't
irritate me a bit whether the post is top or bottom, replies interspersed,
or broken into multiple posts. My only real irritation, is the people that
feel that they have to include all the prior postings in the thread in their
post. I know what the thread's about, and if I want to see the previous
posts, I know how to go back and look at them. I'm just interested in the
answer(s). Period.

My point being?...There' s no "correct" way to reply to a post. Out of
courtesy, one follows the "standard" of the newsgroup one is participating
in. Complaining whether one top posts or bottom posts is just a waste of
time, and you, me, we, all know it. We just don't have anything better to
do but bitch, right?

This particular silly argument always has the same effect; it gets us
off-topic from the original post, and for those of us trying to follow that
topic, this is more irritating than whether one is "posting in the approved
manner". This thread was renamed to a different subject, but that was a
half-dozen rants later in the thread than it needed to be.

Get my point? Naw, too much to expect. I've wasted both your time and my
time with my own rant against your rants. :-)


A lot of you guys seem far more interested in starting arguments and keeping
them running, than you are discussing the pros and cons of Python and
providing helpful answers. Rein in your egos, no one, and I include myself,
has anything helpful to contribute in this kind of "dust-up".

[Terry Reedy]

Re: Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes


"Michele Simionato" <michele.simion ato@poste.it> wrote in message
news:95aa1afa.0 403302049.4d5d4 c91@posting.goo gle.com...[color=blue]
> Peter Hickman <peter@semantic o.com> wrote in message[/color]
news:<4069a001$ 0$4237$afc38c87 @news.easynet.c o.uk>...[color=blue][color=green]
> > I have never left a group because of the trolls.
> > I have never left a group because of the noobies.
> > I have left a group because of the constant whining about top posting.[/color]
>
> Then maybe you should consider leaving c.l.py ?[/color]

Peter, while I am careful to quote, snip, and reply in a manner to make
coherent posts, I have been pretty tolerant of what others do. Indeed, I
don't remember ever commenting about top-posting before this week. (While
I may have, it has not been a priority issue for me.)

But when Mr. Hahn top-posted several sentences littered with several
unresolved references to 'this', 'you', 'suggestion', and something
'fragile', I 'rebelled', seeing how stupidly impolite was his implicit
demand that I spend several minutes scanning the previous post below to see
what he was talking about. End of tolerance. So I satirically, not
whiningly, top-posted a set of questions as to what the references referred
to.

If that drives you off c.l.p., so be it ;-) ... but I hope not.

Terry J. Reedy

[Terry Reedy]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA


"Didier Morandi" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
news:c4e6jv$10t e$1@biggoron.ne rim.net...[color=blue]
> What against-top-posting people do not WANT to understand is that the[/color]
very first[color=blue]
> interest of posting is, to me, to get help or information.
>
> So, you post your question and, by definition, you remember what it was[/color]
(well, I[color=blue]
> hope so).[/color]

SourceForge adds new comments to tracker items to the top of the comments
section. If you are are the original poster, and get a new report emailed
with every comment, and get and read them in order, then newest at top is,
I admit, helpful. BUT if you look at an old, unresolved, bug report with
several comments, perhaps to see if you can help, then the format is a
major nuisance. Read the original report at the top. Then jump down to
the bottom and back up to the top of the first comment and read down. Then
scan up to find the top of the second comment and read down. and so on.

The solution, to me, are more easily customizable information readers and
managers. Then one could have, for instance, a module specifically for
interacting with the SourceForge database, complete with user-preference
settings. (Does one exist now? that I don't know of?)

Terry J. Reedy

[Y2KYZFR1]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA [was : Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes]

JanC <usenet_spam@ja nc.invalid> wrote in message news:<Xns94BD46 7AF47A5JanC@213 .119.4.35>...[color=blue]
> "Mark Hahn" <mark@prothon.o rg> schreef:
>[color=green]
> > I really really try to remember to quote from below. If you go through my
> > posts you will see that I remember most of the time. The last few days I
> > have been reponding to four or five mailing lists after months of only
> > coding and my fingers are worn out.[/color]
>[/color]

then set your newsreader to reply afterwards instead of before, and if
it does not allow this, then switch to one that does, there are lots
of good free newsreaders that don't default to top posting ( yuk! ) or
that let you tell it to reply fromt he bottom.

[Didier Morandi]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA

Ville Vainio wrote:[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>>>>"Didier " == Didier Morandi <no@spam.com> writes:[/color][/color]
>
>
> Didier> I do not read answers to questions I did not post, so I don't care
> Didier> about "unlearn a lifetime of knowledge about narrative flow in
> Didier> content".
>
> So essentially Usenet should be a free Q&A automaton, where people
> post questions and Usenet fairies go around answering them? Everybody
> takes, nobody gives? I believe such service should cost you money...[/color]

Well, no. I should have said that I read questions about which I think I either
know the answer or I can share useful experience with the poster of the question.

D.

[Didier Morandi]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA

Mike Pelletier wrote:
.../..[color=blue]
> Didier Morandi said that the greatest reason for posting is so one may
> "get help or information".[/color]

Didier Morandi said that *his advice on* the greatest reason...

D.

[Dang Griffith]

Re: [OT] Top posting is a PITA [was : Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes]

>As I'm against capital punishement; twentyfive to life for top-posters,[color=blue]
>I say.[/color]
+1
--dang