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Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry

tim-one.github.io

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Re: Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry

#21

Post by benterix »

Tim is very short on the topic of actual accusations but someone else does a good job discussing them one by one:

https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr...

And this one struck me:

> > "Dismissing unacceptable behavior of others as a “neurodivergent” trait"

> In the context of the bylayws change discussions, Tim detailed his relationship with a prickly core developer who was maniacal about a particular bit of stdlib code, whom he considered neurodivergent, and lamented that that person had been removed, because their code was top-notch. He then started a thread questioning if Python was accepting of such people. The accusation is accurate, except in the characterization of "unacceptable" perhaps. The characterizations certainly were not unacceptable to me.

Apart from my personal feelings about this, which are obviously 100% aligned with Toms, I find this particular case a bit bizarre. Where I work for, we have neurodiversity training, celebrate the neurodiversity day, and in general respect the topic a lot, making it clear that neurodiverse people actually belong here. So the actions of these folks seem at odd with something I consider the modern norm, that's really weird.

Re: Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry

#22

Post by amanzi »

The way that Tim was treated was disgraceful. Definitely made me less likely to participate in the Python forums.

Edit - I should clarify that my main concern was the way that all of his alleged offences were collectively summarised into one long list of offences, making them all seem worse collectively. But as Chris McDonough explained in his post, each "offence" was either trivial in nature, or completely taken out of context and made to sound much worse than what it was.

Re: Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry

#24

Post by TZubiri »

raymondh wrote: post #6

For those who don't know the name, Tim Peters is the author of "The Zen of Python". He is the one who uniquely captured was Python is all about with this inspirational little poem: The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters Beautiful is better than ugly. Explicit is better than implicit. Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. Flat is better than nested. Sparse is better than dense. Readability count…

Yeah, if you don't know who Tim Peters is, just run 'import this' and you should get a feel of his place in python (literally).

Re: Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry

#25

Post by TZubiri »

amanzi wrote: post #22

The way that Tim was treated was disgraceful. Definitely made me less likely to participate in the Python forums. Edit - I should clarify that my main concern was the way that all of his alleged offences were collectively summarised into one long list of offences, making them all seem worse collectively. But as Chris McDonough explained in his post, each "offence" was either trivial in nature, or completely taken out…

I think the bottom line is that the PSF or whatever the US 501c3 is ends up losing credibility.

The decentralized nature of software means that the people, Guido Van, or Tim Peters, hold the power, not some legal entity and its bureocratic bylaws.

Re: Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry

#26

Post by zahlman »

benterix wrote: post #21

Tim is very short on the topic of actual accusations but someone else does a good job discussing them one by one: https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr... And this one struck me: > > "Dismissing unacceptable behavior of others as a “neurodivergent” trait" > In the context of the bylayws change discussions, Tim detailed his relationship with a prickly core developer who was maniacal about a part…

> Where I work for, we have neurodiversity training, celebrate the neurodiversity day, and in general respect the topic a lot, making it clear that neurodiverse people actually belong here.

Might I ask where this is? It's encouraging to hear, but it sounds to me like a relative rarity. Certainly the Python Code of Conduct (https://policies.python.org/python.org/code-of-conduct/), and the main Python website diversity statement (https://www.python.org/community/diversity/), are not the only places where I've seen a long list of "protected classes" which omits neurotype; and in over a decade of trying to have reasoned arguments (...) online with the champions of such policies, I have been very strongly left with the impression that, at best they are unaware of neurodiversity issues and at worst see "neurodivergence" as a way for nerds to make a fraudulent claim for sympathy.

To me, that tone carries across strongly in the point you highlight, as well as in the responses in Mr. Peters' thread (https://discuss.python.org/t/how-can-we-better-support-neuro...). (Note in particular Mr. Langa's use of the "missing stair" analogy - one which has been seen in several prior discussions in the Python community, coming from similarly politically aligned members. I don't know why, but the fact that this terminology was originally used to describe sexual predators in the BDSM community doesn't seem to bother any of them.)

Re: Tim Peters – Dispelling Information Asymmetry

#27

Post by benterix »

zahlman wrote: post #26
benterix wrote: post #21

Tim is very short on the topic of actual accusations but someone else does a good job discussing them one by one: https://chrismcdonough.substack.com/p/the-shameful-defenestr... And this one struck me: > > "Dismissing unacceptable behavior of others as a “neurodivergent” trait" > In the context of the bylayws change discussions, Tim detailed his relationship with a prickly core developer who was maniacal about a part…

> Where I work for, we have neurodiversity training, celebrate the neurodiversity day, and in general respect the topic a lot, making it clear that neurodiverse people actually belong here. Might I ask where this is? It's encouraging to hear, but it sounds to me like a relative rarity. Certainly the Python Code of Conduct ( https://policies.python.org/python.org/code-of-conduct/ ), and the main Python website diversi…

> Might I ask where this is?

A large UK-based company, tech department. And it wasn't just lip service - we had meetings with people sharing their personal experiences, including CTO and others. So I assumed it is (becoming) a norm.

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