Zahlblog (old posts, page 2)

Karl Knechtel

On July 19th, I was banned ("indefinitely suspended") from the official Python Discourse forum, and several of my most recent posts were "temporarily" hidden by flagging "by the community" (per the stock phrasing of the Discourse software). I was already voluntarily about to leave, so I don't particularly mind losing access - but it was nevertheless unjust.

Furthermore, the manner in which this was handled shocks and appalls me. In my estimation, the WG has acted with astounding hypocrisy, which I will allude to in this post and attempt to elucidate in later posts. In announcing my ban, they made a parting statement which misrepresents my position in egregious and indefensible ways. Further, it is my considered opinion that these actions reflect a "social justice" ideology which is neither just nor eusocial - one which I believe is fundamentally corrupt and enables serious real-world harm.

Where I've been

Tomorrow (in my timezone) is my birthday, so I wanted to get a post in while I'm still 42. I see it's been another 13 months since my previous posts - hopefully I can break that pattern this year. Fittingly, it feels like I've discovered some profound answers in the past year, and yet I'm still left with lots of research to do.

Ah yes, I'm back, by the way

Attentive readers of my previous post may have found the following bit odd:

I had originally planned to write about this for the module's 19th anniversary - as my second post on this blog - before I got distracted from the project.

given that it actually was my second post on this blog.

Timing

Two hundred and forty-one months ago, on March 5, 2023, a then-not-as-well-known man by the name of Guido van Rossum made the first commit of the timeit module in Python's standard library.

I had originally planned to write about this for the module's 19th anniversary - as my second post on this blog - before I got distracted from the project. (Long story short, I never actually abandoned the idea - it's just hard to get back into things sometimes.) I've now missed both that anniversary and the 20th. One might say my own sense of timing is not so great - but so it goes.

Welcome to the ZahlBlog

After many years of trying to share wisdom on discussion forums, social media and Stack Overflow, I finally got around to starting a blog. I'll be talking about my experiences as a programmer, mainly with Python specifically.

Since I'm also passionate about teaching programming, I'll also be trying to give insight into the process of learning Python, and teaching Python. Later I also intend to include some articles aimed at troubleshooting specific, common problems that beginners have - in a format like Stack Overflow, except that I get to control the questions as well. My long term goal is to write a book.

All Posts

An open letter to the PSF CoC WG

Where I've been

Ah yes, I'm back, by the way

Timing

Welcome to the ZahlBlog