I wish there were a category of “comedy” that I could post this under. A friend of mine just forwarded me this blog post: http://perkypants.org/blog/2006/09/02/rfte-python/ The title of the post is “RftE: Python”, meaning “Ready for the Enterprise”. In this post, author Jeff Waugh asserts that Python is not ready for the enterprise because “the Python shell wakes up every 100msec”. Some of his readers pointed out that it was the readline library waking up rather than Python in general.
I didn’t post this because I wanted to point out error or give the article’s author a hard time. Jeff’s readers did a fine job rather quickly with that. I’m mentioning it here because Jeff’s post was absolutely hilarious, especially the references to Senator Ted Stephens and the “Snakes on a Plane” movie. And the reader comments are equally entertaining. Funny thing is, I am not convinced that he was serious with the post. It seems that it was intended for entertainment-oriented consumption. So, take a minute, read the post and enjoy. In my opinion, this is brilliant humor. Thumbs up, Jeff!
Well, I'm glad *someone* got the joke!
However, the element of truth I used as the edifice for the humour was not wholly without merit (though it was, at least I thought, comically ridiculous)... It is actually the Python readline module, not the readline library itself, that is waking up every 100ms.
This can be fixed, though, so Python is still to blame. ;-) But of course, none of that has any relation to the actual bug or impact on real life systems... I honestly thought all of that was so over the top that no one would take it seriously, but apparently I offended a few people.
*boggle*
:-)
It's only a joke if you read it as such. Of course Jeff's word is the final word on the matter (as he posted here in September), but those who want to see seriousness in the article can find it. The point can be taken literally or humorously. It's all in the eye of the beholder.