I have reasons for preferring other languages over Python, but I'm actually not going to write about that.
Instead I am writing in response to this sentiment
"They're not helpful to the people reading these articles[...]
"If you really want D to succeed, simply evangelize it. Don't use it as a way to attack others." -- @Safi
Articles in question
Response
This is a completely understandable position to take. To be clear I am not attacking the author, his programming ability, choice of design. I genuinely find these articles well written. So what is my intent when adding the comment? I would say it started here
"I recently got to work outside my comfort zone, rather than scripting in D I was to utilize Python."
This resulted in 14 posts of very basic objectives. As someone who has programmed for some time it is hard to realize the importance of articles on the basics.
Articles from other languages provide additional insight into what people find useful. This can be very inspirational to create similar content.
Now I link back to the original article to give credit where credit is due. I could leave it at that. However, I posted back to the original article to inform the original author.
This action is of course leaves the door open for language debate. Ultimately the article I'm writing is a direct comparison with a conclusion where I favor D, so yes, please debate my conclusions.
But what of my comment referencing this debatable topic? Well I did attempt to pull the discussion into my article. I probably could have done it earlier and be better about it.
Clearly article readers are there to learn something about Python. Maybe I should work on changing my messaging.
Top comments (4)
As the writer of the main post that started this, I wanted to say, @jessekphillips that I found nothing wrong with your post. As you said, it is generally helpful to have language comparison to see how another language might handle the same content. And so what if your tool of choice is different than your tool of choice. If anything it piqued my interest inD rather than detracted from it.
My personal problem come from those who dismiss beginner articles as was done in the thread “...and these annoying first post on python articles”. Rather than saying that any of it was of value, they outright claim them as annoying, and sure to them, they could be annoying especially if you have no use for them. But that sort of outright dismissal ignores how valuable beginner articles can be for those who are starting out or trying to deepen their knowledge in that language.
It seems in that you and I have the same approach in that way, so thank you for you posts and I look forward to more
The missing context here is that these articles about D seemed to be the first reply to a number of Python related posts. When I say the post is annoying it's not meant to be an attack or dismissal on the article. All I'm saying is that seeing "Hey, you seem to think python list comprehensions are readable. I don't see that and here's an article I wrote about it" on the bottom of a beginner article about Python leaves a bad taste my mouth.
Is the article about D useful? Absolutely. But I don't think posting it as a comparison to Python on an article that isn't about comparing programming languages is very helpful.
/rant
When given this fuller context I definitely get at your point! And I'll go ahead and apologize for my end of this business. If this is what you're getting at I 100% understand
I was surprised that those were the responses to received. Python is one of my languages and I didn't read your work as an attack on the language or the original article. I found your articles better for the comparison. Reading an unfamiliar language is easier when it's compared to one you know.