Old fuddy-duddy that I am, every now and then I venture back to Slashdot to see if the quality of the commentary has bottomed out. Apparently not. But thanks for the data point, moron.

I'm a fan of Python, but this question is a joke, right?
Sidestepping interminable arguments about the merits of language A vs language B, and ignoring the flat-out ignorant assertions in the 'anonymous reader's thoughts' about IDEs and compilers, the question is predicated on a culpably ignorant interpretation of the very data they cite.

So here's how PYPL works:

so... what the data actually show is that relatively more folks want to learn Python these days than C or Java or Haskell (or whatever) — which is scarcely surprising since more non-specialist programmers are learning to code than ever before, and Python is easy to learn and great to teach with for that demographic — what the data definitely do NOT show is that Python is replacing C or Java or Haskell (or whatever) in the production domains in which those languages shine. And it never will.

I meant, of course, that every dollar is NOT equal.

Yes, it is. Conservation laws hold in economics just as they do in physics! The "half-life" argument is pure freshman economics sleight-of-hand that conveniently ignores the fact that every dollar is equal, (spending vs income) at least from the point of view of GST. If the whole of my dollar of GST-liable spending goes instead to the cash vendor, they need to spend two dollars within the GST system to make sure that the system remains equivalent in tax revenue to two taxed transactions. Consider the reductio ad absurdum - if all vendors except me accepted cash only, how would my taxed income and spending habits need to change in order to provide a country's worth of GST revenue?

Dear Anonymous Coward,

See my approximate federal tax bill in my reply above. So, nope, I do have to pay for those services.

Now show me yours so I can prove my hunch that in fact I pay more tax than you do. What I'm pretty certain of, if you're in the U.S., is that the reason I feel I am getting better value for my money is that instead of my government spending a huge (and increasing! Thanks Donald) fraction of those tax dollars on things that I don't use and never see the benefits of (military, prisons), they spend those dollars on things my family and I use all the time like the health system and subsidised day care.

No need to guess, I'll tell you.

In terms of federal taxes I pay about $30k in income tax per year, and about $2k goods and services tax.
I receive about $30 per week in government rebate (means tested) for my kids' childcare costs.
$32,000 - $1,560 > 0
You're wrong

All your points are excellent, and I agree with them, but they justify only a scepticism of U.S. government efficiency and spending priorities, and don't explain the general revulsion at the concept of taxation. Although everywhere these days "tax" is becoming a dirty word in politics, to the great detriment of intelligent policy discourse. Always always it is politicised spending programs (defence, law and order) that get the attention, and the fiscal conservatives grudgingly buy in to these programs often against all evidence and financial sanity, as the price of powersharing with the ideological conservatives. Revenue programs are boring, hard to sell, and easy marks for FUD. Consequence - magical thinking of the first order, that you can have your cake and eat it too.

who have posted and then modded up all the anti-taxation posts here. It may come as a surprise to you but as an Australian, I'm pretty happy with any mechanism that means that more of any equitable tax that lawfully can be collected, is collected. Because:

1. 1. I enjoy my access to excellent free universal healthcare.
2. 2. I enjoy the fact that my children attend a good public school
3. 3. I enjoy my country's federal (interstate) highway system
4. 4. I enjoy the fact that unfunded seniors, the disabled and others unable to provide for themselves are not forced to live on the streets or depend on charity
5. (I could go on...)

and lastly, because if everyone pays their rightful share, each individual can pay less. This is not about "extra" taxation, or taxing "3, 4, 5" times, but simply applying the same rules everyone. It is amusing to me that you assume that everyone in the world has the same allergic reaction to paying taxes that you do, because you assume that everyone else in the world shares the same jaundiced view of government and the social contract that many of you do - not just those on the libertarian fringe either, it seems, but reg'lar folks who rather unbelievably to me and many in my country, elected a president that publicly brags about paying little or no taxes. In Australia a political campaign would be dead in the water after such an admission, - the "obligation to shareholders blah blah blah" argument being self-serving bullshit in the case of a privately-held company like Trump Organization anyhow - because although we're not the fair and equitable nation we once were there's a pretty strong feeling that our obligations must balance our privileges. Of which we have many. As it happens I don't think GST or other consumption taxes that this kind of payment system will help with tracking are the best kind of tax, but they're not entirely regressive either. For mine, a single, universal no-exemption financial transaction tax is the way to go.

... and mud in the eye of greedy corporations, just like Trumpty dumpty promised... right? I can't wait to see more such tremendous initiatives from Pai.

Oh, FFS I tried. You really are obtuse. My point, made tersely in my original response to Katko and pertaining directly to the topic of the OP, elaborated on with examples after you came white-knighting in here, being that Julian Assange is a dick - prone to behaving in a sanctimonious, hypocritical, cowardly fashion - said nothing whatever about wikileaks but is indeed largely predicated on accepting the claim that "Wikileaks is in the publishing business, not the hacking business". So just keep repeating it. Either wikileaks is a dumb clearing-house or wikileaks is a legitimate publisher. If the former, Assange is at best some kind of unusually self-aggrandizing but otherwise tangential media commentator, guilty in this case only of lying about his willingness to trade himself for Manning - but if the latter, he's responsible for the at best shoddy job and terrible lapses of judgement and at worst the utterly venal nature of wikileaks' editorial policy - the failure to protect the innocent, the failure to champion let alone act on journalistic principles of fairness, independence and accountability, the threat to use information withheld for purposes of damage or retaliation etc. etc. Give me a good old fashioned partisan hack any day over the smooth untroubled hypocrite who believes he acts on principle. /communication

Yes. Really. "I used to support you until I had these Concerns!" == concern trolling.

Again, no. Concern trolling is defined by the intent to disrupt the discourse by falsely representing one's motivations, not by the simple presence of a clause stating that "I don't believe x anymore" - particularly when the statement as in this case was a simple, if heated refutation of the stupid claim that "everyone used to believe in x until a week ago, so anyone who says they don't believe in it now is an American sockpuppet". But I think you know that, you just enjoy calling people names. If you really thought I were a troll, aren't you a little old to be feeding the likes of me?

Your hand waving and butthurt attempt at avoidance are noted.

What, like in a little black book or something? That sounds kind of authoritarian.

Yes that really is the issue right there, isn't it? Because either wikileaks is a publisher, and Julian is editor-in-chief and responsible for policy, or blah blah blah blah

Word salad is boring and needs more radishes.

And your failure to address the substance of a literally a single one of the points I made shows just how empty your argument is. Except it's not really argument is it, it's just name-calling informed by anarcho-syndicalist dogmatism - or somesuch drivel - tossed off without a thought. You don't have to stick to the party line on every bloody thing you know, you're allowed to have your own thoughts. Or a debate, with someone who probably agrees with you on more positions than not.

Not really, no, given the topic of the OP and the ludicrous assertions in the post I was responding to that essentially claimed all criticism of Assange had sprung up in the last week from "an [sic] US army of armchair warriors". But don't let facts and context get in the way when you're on troll roll, eh?

I very happily stand by my judgement and comments. You on the other hand seem to be suffering butthurt because... I don't know, your idol turned out to have feet of clay? That's ok, It happens to everyone, but you'll grow out of it. Leaktivism will (hopefully) survive Assange the Dick.

Yes that really is the issue right there, isn't it? Because either wikileaks is a publisher, and Julian is editor-in-chief and responsible for policy, or it's a dumb pastebin/liveleaks type dumping ground and what role does that leave for him? And when you have the editor/figurehead/sometime-saint on the one hand saying that wikileaks' policy is fighting for openness and justice, even offering to sacrifice his own limited freedom to obtain clemency for Manning, and then on the other hand acting not only in a blatantly partisan fashion - remember wikileaks' criticism of Panama papers? The October surprise? Threats to release personal details of journalists families? but straight out in cowardly bad faith - no wikileaks material on Putin at all, no follow through on the Manning quid pro quo - then you have right there an enormous, flaming, king-size hypocrite.

Indulge me and my stupidity, and respond anyway. Before you do, how about actually read the link in my old stupid comment to an eyewitness account from a Russian dissident, also look up the definitions of "mouthpiece" and "stooge". The best assets don't even ask to be paid in vodka or big macs, they do it for free because they've got their own motivations.

So hurtful.

Ecuadorian mom's basement

Nice one :)

What rock have you been living under? Plenty of originally supportive folks decided Assange was a dickhead a long time ago. I myself have been saying so in this very place for years, most recently just two months ago. And I'm not American let alone on some American psyops payroll, I'm an Australian who believes in freedom, whistleblowing and exposing corruption - you know, all the things that wikileaks used to stand for. So you can fuck right off.

Seriously, what the righteous fuck are you talking about? Is your argument going to consist of a series of utterly unsupported assertions, or are you ever going to back up this shit with citations?
Oh, and I do read the journals, and know how to interpret the results - I'm a physics PhD so better than you, I almost guarantee it - and that plus the fact that I have kids and care about the world they are going to inherit is what made me and makes me passionate about the subject, not some fucking shill with an agenda in a Youtube video. Look, it occurs to me now from your language that you're actually 16 years old, in which case I forgive you, and suggest you get an actual education and stop looking at Youtube so much. Otherwise, again, grow up.