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      -- Seen in Sean McGrath's .sig, 3 Dec 1998

I never realized it before, but having looked that over I'm certain I'd rather
have my eyes burned out by zombies with flaming dung sticks than work on a
conscientious Unicode regex engine.
      -- Tim Peters, 3 Dec 1998

"Python? Oh, I've heard of that. I have a friend at the NSA who uses it."
      -- Overhead at a meeting, quoted in c.l.p on 3 Dec 1998

I think Gordon has priority on this one, since it's clearly a consequence of
his observation that tim_one despises and deplores anything useful. Which has
greater explanatory power, since I've often noted that tim_one complains about
legal working code too! Anything that works may be useful, right? Brrrrr. Must
destroy.
      -- Tim Peters in the third person, 3 Dec 1998

"Eric has a way of explaining what we're doing and why we're doing it," says
Guido van Rossum, the inventor of a programming language called Python and a
prominent figure among open-source proponents. Van Rossum, a gawky Dutchman who
now lives in Reston, invited Raymond to address a group of Python software
developers in Houston...
      -- From the _Washington Post_, 3 Dec 1998

Subclassing with a mixin doesn't let you, for example, interfere with how an
existing attribute is accessed. The general idea here is to kidnap the object,
skin it, then waltz around in public impersonating it. All without letting the
programmer / user know he's been bamboozled.
      -- Gordon McMillan, 3 Dec 1998

    Hey, while they're all eating dinner, let's sneak in a keyword!
    emancipate variable: declare absolute freedom for one variable. It can be
whatever it wants whenever it wants in whatever form it wants in whatever
language it wants on whatever computer it wants. In the ensuing chaos it will
get nothing done, but it will give programmers stories to tell for years to
come...
      -- Mike Fletcher, 25 Dec 1998

    "Can we kill this thread? The only thing it does as far as I'm concerned is
increase the posting statistics. :-)"
    "don't-open-cans-of-worms-unless-you're-looking-for-a-new-diet-ly y'rs"
      -- Guido van Rossum and Tim Peters, 6 Jan 1999

    Hey, that was the first truly portable laptop! Of course I'm nostalgic.
Came with a mighty 24Kb RAM standard, & I popped the extra $80 to max it out at
32Kb. Much of Cray's register assigner was developed on that beast: unlike the
prototype Crays of the time, the M100 was always available and never crashed.
Even better, I could interrupt it any time, poke around, and resume right where
it left off <wink>.
    m100-basic-reminded-me-a-lot-of-python-except-that-it-sucked-ly y'rs
      -- Tim Peters remembering the Model 100, 10 Jan 1999

    "Heh -- all it really broke so far was my resistance to installing Tk. I
suppose wizardry is inevitable after one installs something, though <wink>."
    "Spoken like a truly obsessive-compulsive wizard! It-takes-one-to-know
-one..."
      -- Tim Peters and Guido van Rossum, 6 Jan 1999

Note, however, that architectural forms are completely declarative and can be
implemented in a highly optimized fashion. The sorts of extensions that
Microsoft has proposed for XSL (<xsl:eval>...</>) would completely destroy
those features. Architectural mapping would, in general, be as reliable and
high performance as ordinary software -- (not at all).
      -- Paul Prescod, 6 Jan 1999

Darned confusing, unless you have that magic ingredient *coffee*, of which I
can pay you Tuesday for a couple pounds of extra-special grind today.
      -- John Mitchell, 11 Jan 1999

That's so obvious that someone has already got a patent on it.
      -- Guido van Rossum, 12 Jan 1999

I have to stop now. I've already told you more than I know.
      -- Wolf Logan, 14 Jan 1999

I really don't have any incisive insights about the economic mechanisms or
viability of free software and open source, but I do have a strong, clear sense
that such things make it possible for me to do my job, as a programmer and a
facilitator of/participant in online communities, better and more easily than I
otherwise could do.
      -- Ken Manheimer, 24 Jan 1999

    Every standard applies to a certain problem domain and a certain level. A
standard can work perfectly and save the world economy billions of dollars and
there will still be software and hardware compatibility problems. In fact,
solving one level of compatibility just gives rise to the next level of
incompatibility. For example, connecting computers together through standard
protocols gives rise to the problem of byte endianness issues. Solving byte
endianness gives rise to the problem of character sets. Solving character sets
gives rise to the problem of end-of-line and end-of-file conventions. Solving
that gets us to the problem of interpreting the low-level syntax (thus XML).
Then we need to interpet that syntax in terms of objects and properties (thus
RDF, WDDX, etc.). And so forth.
    We could judge a standard's success by its ability to reveal another level
of standardization that is necessary.
      -- Paul Prescod, 24 Jan 1999

I just want to go on the record as being completely opposed to computer
languages. Let them have their own language and soon they'll be off in the
corner plotting with each other!
      -- Steven D. Majewski, 25 Jan 1999

Constraints often boost creativity.
      -- Jim Hugunin, 11 Feb 1999

Programming is no different - it's only by going outside what you know, and
looking from another direction (working, if you like, your brain, so that it
can be more powerful :-) that you can improve further.
      -- Andrew Cooke, 12 Feb 1999

any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-too-mysterious- to- trust-ly
y'rs
      -- Tim Peters, 16 Feb 1999

    "I don't think we've thought of this, and it's actually a good idea."
    "I'd better go patent it!"
      -- Uche Ogbuji and Paul Prescod, 16 Feb 1999

Contrary to advertising, no parsing system is "easy to learn", in or out of the
Python world -- parsing is a hard problem. Most are easy enough to use after
practice, though. Ironically, the trickiest system of all to master (regexps)