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What really happened at PyCon 2013

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Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#81

Post by Kiruw »

Cushman wrote: post #79
bad_user wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Romanian. > suggesting that abortion should be illegal, which is a mainstream position in the USA, is such a crazy-far-right position in Denmark Personally I think Americans are spoiled. In Romania under Ceausescu (so before 1989) abortions were illegal. Hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of women (in a country with a population of less than 19 millions) ended up doing illegal abortions under unhealthy,…

Perhaps you are not aware-- that is precisely the same situation as in the United States until Roe v. Wade in 1973. The phenomenon you're describing is pretty common knowledge in our left-wing political circles; on the right, it is deliberately ignored.

Uhm... no. This is factually incorrect. If it's "pretty common knowledge in [your] left-wing political circles", that's fairly pathetic. Roe v. Wade overrode state (and occasionally local)-level laws making abortion illegal, but it did not suddenly switch abortion from "illegal" to "legal" in the entire country. (How could that even happen... from a practical perspective?)

There were 193,491 legal abortions in the US in 1970. Prior to Roe v. Wade, abortion was a state-by-state matter, and the lines were being drawn in fairly predictable ways based on the right/left state-makeup of the time.

Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#82

Post by badloginagain »

See, now this sounds like something I want to go to. It sounds like something that would directly benefit me and make me a stronger programmer.

I was surprised at how damaging the "incident" was to my perception of pycon overall. The only thing I really heard about the event was all this BS, so I'm glad that this post really informed of the true value and importance of events like these.

Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#83

Post by toxik »

mamoswined wrote: post #69

"The PyCon Code of Conduct was tested twice that I know of, and it worked well." No. Imagine if PyCon had a reasonable code of conduct instead of this "Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks...In particular, exhibitors should not use sexualized images, activities, or other material. Booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualized clothing/uniforms/costume…

I agree with what you're getting at: sex is part of life, and being so broad about it depraves the language.

Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#84

Post by grappler »

michaelochurch wrote: post #4

Thank you for posting this. I wasn't at PyCon 2013, but I really wish the discussion would get back to the fact that 99% of what happens when technical people get together is positive and cool. It's really sad that the ridiculous 1% gets so much attention. I actually don't think technology people are that bad, not as a class. Most types of ambitious male business people are a lot more vulgar and perverse than the tec…

Who is Michael O. Church? He seems to have lots of top comments on this site. Is it mostly because if the interesting (and voluminous) stuff he writes about office politics? Or is there more of a story here? I haven't found much.

Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#86

Post by Cushman »

Kiruw wrote: post #81
Cushman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you are not aware-- that is precisely the same situation as in the United States until Roe v. Wade in 1973. The phenomenon you're describing is pretty common knowledge in our left-wing political circles; on the right, it is deliberately ignored.

Uhm... no. This is factually incorrect. If it's "pretty common knowledge in [your] left-wing political circles", that's fairly pathetic. Roe v. Wade overrode state (and occasionally local)-level laws making abortion illegal, but it did not suddenly switch abortion from "illegal" to "legal" in the entire country. (How could that even happen... from a practical perspective?) There were 193,491 legal abortions in the US…

Your point is well-taken, but I don't think it actually goes against what I'm saying. Abortion in the US was not Federally illegal, but it was illegal for many women and many women died for that. That ended when Roe established it as an affirmative right-- though perhaps not for good, as we're starting to see again entire states where legal abortions are simply not available.

I do appreciate the correction, though I'd have appreciated it more in a more constructive tone.

Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#87

Post by slewis »

hurfdurferson wrote: post #70
mamoswined wrote: post #69

"The PyCon Code of Conduct was tested twice that I know of, and it worked well." No. Imagine if PyCon had a reasonable code of conduct instead of this "Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks...In particular, exhibitors should not use sexualized images, activities, or other material. Booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualized clothing/uniforms/costume…

A professional tech conference shouldn't have a code of conduct banning sex talk which, by the way, is completely irrelevant to technology? Just because you, as a woman, don't have a problem with it then no other woman is allowed to have a problem with it? Nice. Hey ladies, mamoswined ain't faded. Sexism is OVER.

Surely there are porn sites written in Python.

Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#88

Post by simonh »

h2s wrote: post #48

> Eben Upton, one of the creators of the Raspberry Pi, > shared with us the brilliant insight that many young > people used to have to “choose not to program” when > they turned their computers on, in order to play games What a quote. I remember this. My family had an Amstrad CPC 464, and when you booted it up, this is what it said: Amstrad 128k Microcomputer (v3) © 1985 Amstrad Computer Electronics plc and Locomotiv…

If you think about it, a shell prompt is just as much of an invitation to code. It's only really the GUI that changed this.

Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#89

Post by drbawb »

simonh wrote: post #88
h2s wrote: post #48

> Eben Upton, one of the creators of the Raspberry Pi, > shared with us the brilliant insight that many young > people used to have to “choose not to program” when > they turned their computers on, in order to play games What a quote. I remember this. My family had an Amstrad CPC 464, and when you booted it up, this is what it said: Amstrad 128k Microcomputer (v3) © 1985 Amstrad Computer Electronics plc and Locomotiv…

If you think about it, a shell prompt is just as much of an invitation to code. It's only really the GUI that changed this.

I agree that the GUI is the likely culprit.

Though, as far as hacking goes, I'd almost prefer a BASIC prompt [or `irb`, `idle`, or any other number of modern REPLs] as opposed to a shell prompt.

I can hack away at bash scripts... but bash just doesn't seem as warm and inviting as BASIC was.

I think part of that is: shells are _primarily_ an interface to your filesystem. They offer IO redirection and the ability to run arbitrary executables.

While their scripting facilities are certainly "complete", and plenty usable, I'd disagree that they're designed for it.

When I fudge my fingers writing some Ruby, Go, Python, or Perl, the compiler or interpreter is usually pretty helpful in guiding me to my mistake. Often times it's also helpful in _suggesting_ the means to fix that mistake.

When shell scripting goes _wrong_, (as it often _will_ for a complete novice), I don't think the shell is as helpful in correcting the mistake.

That's my $.02 anyways.

Re: What really happened at PyCon 2013

#90

Post by badfortrains »

qw wrote: post #40
_delirium wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point. I don't have any real basis to generalize, but I have been in a number of situations where business people think that tech people are too politically correct. Coming from a general view that tech isn't really a role model in that category to begin with, that was surprising to encounter. My limited time in Europe suggests that European culture on the whole is less attentive on this subject…

From my view as a Scandinavian your culture seems much more obsessed about sex and punishment than you should. 3-strike system and schools with "zero tolerance" policies are unthinkable here. I also think it's strange to see how you try to protect TV viewers from nipples and the "F-word". It's not surprising that it produces people like AR who thinks any offence is worth fighting.

It seems that the F-word/nipples moratorium is pretty much over. While it's true that broadcast tv still can't show it, cable/satellite tv is pretty ubiquitous and free to bath us in as many nipples and F-words as they please.

As for 3-strikes and "zero tolerance" that's a whole other can of worms. Looking at the disparity in US crime statistics vs Scandinavian countries, it's pretty understandable that cultural attitudes toward legal punishment are so different. 3-strikes and "zero tolerance" are wrong headed and ineffective, in my view, but you can at least empathize with the motivation (as opposed to the whole nipple thing)

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