Originally this was buried in a comment to an article on Uche's weblog, but he suggested I post it on my own weblog, here goes. The history of this long running discussion is here.

I think for PJE to speak about people detecting (or not) 'context and nuance' in what amounts to a rant is a bit confusing. I appreciated the rant quite a bit, but the exact thing that was missing from it was context and nuance; it wouldn't be a good rant otherwise. As he says in a comment to my article, his position is more nuanced than his tone was.

The one bit of context I got before he actually announced it was that he was probably looking at the Chandler source code...

I'd seen the XML bit of his "Python is not Java" post quoted by a few other other Python programmers, and I was responding to people who picked up on that bit. The problem I have is more with the tone than the content. XML is certainly far from a panacea, but it cannot be ignored either. My problem with the rant, and the way the rant was being picked up, is that his tone is giving an excuse to other Python programmers to ignore XML with disdain. I don't believe that's an attitude that is useful.

Finally, to Uche: I hope the backlash to XML can be kept from being too viscious. Viscious backlash to me has a connotation with uninformed lashing out, while what is needed is constructive, though strong, criticism.