[Grok-dev] Caveman style articles

[Mike Orr]

On Jan 8, 2008 5:07 AM, Noah Gift <noah.gift at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 8, 2008, at 4:16 AM, Aroldo Souza-Leite wrote:
>
> > Hi list,
> >
> > just in case somebody overlooked this article, like I almost did:
> >
> > http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2008/01/wilfz_what_i_learned_from_zope_1.html
> >
> >
> > Let's call it an article written in the genuine Caveman style.
> > Perhaps one needs to have worked as a bouncer to learn this
> > straightforward language. Hey, Noah, can you give us a few hints?
> While I was an undergrad, I had to take Organic Chemistry over the
> summer, and I needed money.  I got a job during day at the library in
> the collections and development department, and at night I worked as a
> bouncer.  It was really a strange summer getting into scraps and
> coming home covered in blood and beer at times, and then showering up
> to work at the library, and then finally off to lab for a few
> experiments.
>
> Mike Orr looks pretty tough, I think he should do a Caveman style
> article:  http://linuxgazette.net/115/orr.html  I have CC'd him.  I
> think he would look good in a caveman suite.

Haha, I did write a kind of a caveman-style article once.
http://linuxgazette.net/issue96/orr.html

You'd have to be familiar with Linux Gazette to understand some of the
jokes.  Woomert Foonly and Frink Ooblick are a Holmes-and-Watson pair
who solve problems with Perl one-liners.  So I wrote an article about
a Perl-Python rivalry with an uppity third character.

> > Shouldn't the Grok site have a place with links to selected Caveman
> > style articles like this one?

A caveman page would be cool.  But I don't use Grok (just Pylons), so
it would have to be a page not limited to that.  Because there's a
larger issue of the gulf between computer geeks and, er,
testosterone-driven guys.  Sometimes I feel so out of place in
computer groups, and wish there were more people I could share my
other interests with.

So you know about MMA and worked with Liddell, that's cool.  I have a
friend who grew up between two marine bases in North Carolina; he'd
done aikido and karate for thirty years.  When he was 15 he was a
bouncer at a bar, and he'd have to take care of these unruly marines.
These guys would think they're invincible, and he'd have them on the
ground wimpering to their buddies to just leave quietly.

Another Python caveman is Titus Brown (http://ivory.idyll.org/blog).
His latest blog title is: "It's not the lines of code, dummy."  He's a
delight to hear at a talk or in person.  For instance, he wrote a
program to test web pages easily (Twill).  So at the end of a talk he
said: "Now there's no excuse for not writing tests for your web apps.
So unless you're bigger than me, you'd better write tests by this time
next year or I'm gonna find you and kick your ass."

As for how to do it, it's part physical and part mental.  The physical
part is obvious: join a boxing class or wrestling class, run
regularly, etc.  Being in shape and well-coordinated and knowing self
defense are valuable throughout your life, especially by keeping you
healthier in old age.    The mental part is giving yourself permission
to be confident and cocky.  This was normal all throughout history
until the 1960s, when wimpiness became a virtue.  (Radical feminism
played a large part in this societal change.)    Now things are
pulling back because you can't suppress guys' aggressive energy
forever.  Thus the rise of MMA.

I just thought of a slogan for the page.  "Cavemen: putting the 'Py'
in the face."

-- 
Mike Orr <sluggoster at gmail.com>