From: Sean O'Dell Date: 2004-06-15T02:33:37+09:00 Subject: Re: [ANN] celsoft.com/Battery 0.1.1 On Monday 14 June 2004 10:09, Hal Fulton wrote: > Sean O'Dell wrote: > > On Monday 14 June 2004 09:27, James Britt wrote: > >>Sean O'Dell wrote: > >>>I am about to put the word "arbitrary" back into every single > >>>celsoft.com/Battery document I've written if people refuse to respect my > >>>opinion in the matter and continue to berate me over it. I took it out > >>>initially trying to avoid hurting anyone's feelings, but since it seems > >>>apparent that this discussion is going to go on and on, I feel almost > >>>compelled to hold up the word on a billboard. I used the word properly, > >>>and I still meant what I said. I'm starting to feel sorry for taking > >>> the word out of the docs. > >> > >>Picking a different word to avoid hurt feelings is probably not a good > >>goal; picking better words to improve accuracy might be. > > > > Even Nathaniel himself admitted the decision to order tests > > alphabetically was an arbitrary one. Accuracy is 100%. Annoyance at > > having this discussion is somewhere above that. > > I think I'm seeing the root of the disagreement (taking off my hacker > hat and putting on my Amateur Logician/Linguist Hat). > > I think the decision to use alphabetical order may be an arbitrary > decision. But the ordering itself is anything but arbitrary. A is > followed by B is followed by C, and so on. I wasn't referring to the decision so much as the order itself. My initial purpose for writing celsoft.com/Battery was so I could control the order the tests ran. You can create a battery, and add tests to it in the order you want them to run and they run your way. Test/Unit always ran tests alphabetically, so while both the decision was an arbitrary one, the order itself was arbitrary as you could (well, easily) change the run order. > As I implied earlier, I don't think most of us would say that the words > in a dictionary are in "arbitrary" order. They're not; I think a lot of reason and principal back up the decision. > Getting back to your dictionary definition, there is a definite reason > or principal in the operation of the ordering itself; but not > necessarily in the decision to use that particular ordering. Not quite the same thing though. I think when a small group of people think something is a good thing, and imposes it on a lot of people who don't necessarily agree, that's still arbitrary. This is one of those things you can't really put to opinion. Even the most hardcore "alphabetic-only" group would have to concede that allowing you to run your tests any way you want means they can run them alphabetically. So when a small group of developers decide on alphabetic-only, that's arbitrary, even though a lot of them agree on a reason or principal. Primarily because the reasons and principles aren't widely held. But in this case, even if a hundred people came here and said "but I hold that belief" it wouldn't nullify the alternative of having some choice (however, I suspect a lot of people DON'T agree with alphabetic-only). Having no choice in the matter, even if everyone here said the choice was fine, would still make the order arbitrary because it is imposed on the rest of us who don't think so. When having a choice in the order is a perfectly acceptable alternative, and you're not given that choice at all, everyone is forced into a "no choice" situation. That's like a government saying "We won't put this to a vote, and you cannot decide for yourselves individually. We've consulted a thousand wise men, and they all say we should impose this upon you, and so we will." See how arbitrary that is? They have a good reason, but it still ignores choice, when choice should go to the people. Not in all things, but in some, where choice is a perfectly valid option, when it's not given, the result is arbitrary. I hope that made sense. It's long, but that's where I'm coming from. The alphabetic-only ordering is, to me, very arbitrary. It's imposed, it doesn't come with any good reason that I can see, and even if it did, I can think of many reasons to disagree even before I hear the reason. It's arbitrary as far as I'm concered. > But me, I'm just a natural nitpicker. I think it's genetic. I'm the king of nit-picking. Sean O'Dell