3 ms·

"To the extent that anyone cares about C++11's random-number facility at all, the C++ community is polarized between two views—one that likes it, and one that h

"To the extent that anyone cares about C++11's random-number facility at all, the C++ community is polarized between two views—one that likes it, and one that hates it." Isn't that almost a tautology? "People who care about X either love it or hate it".

forrestthewoods 11y ago
There's a wide spectrum between love and hate.
- TillE 11y ago
  Yeah, and all those people probably aren't participating in online discussions about it. I'm pretty happy with most aspects of <random>, but I don't seek out arguments. I just use it.
  - lmitchell 11y ago
    This is basically the problem with the whole Internet though ;)
wutbrodo 11y ago
No. You can recognize the importance of something and care about it a lot while thinking it's (eg) mediocre. Thinking a problem is important and having an extreme opinion of a solution are entirely different axes.
- isolate 11y ago
  In my experience, having an extreme opinion of a problem's importance (very important, not important whatsoever) is correlated with having an extreme opinion of a solution (love it, hate it).
  - wutbrodo 11y ago
    > having an extreme opinion of a problem's importance (very important, not important whatsoever) is correlated with having an extreme opinion of a solution (love it, hate it). I don't think this is correct either. How would thinking a problem is "not important whatsoever" imply that someone must love or hate any potential solution? I couldn't care less how sports team X fixes their losing record, and yet your claim is that that would somehow correlate with me having extreme opinions (love or hate) about their decision to draft Player Y? Very much to the contrary, I'm apathetic about any solution, which is pretty much the definition of finding a problem "not important whatsoever". Furthermore, I'm not even sure how "extreme opinions of the problem's importance" is relevant to what we're talking about. The original quote was "to the extent that anyone cares about [the problem] at all". That's anywhere from "I care a bit" to "I care a ton", not exclusively "I care a ton". Finally, even if you weren't very wrong about the premise of what we're talking about: "X is correlated with Y" doesn't mean "X implies Y is a tautology (or close to one) because they're the same thing", which is the original statement I was responding to.
    - isolate 11y ago
      >> correlated > imply that someone must Meh, correlation is not causation. Let's include apathy as a third extreme, for both problems and solutions.

forrestthewoods 11y ago

There's a wide spectrum between love and hate.

TillE 11y ago
Yeah, and all those people probably aren't participating in online discussions about it. I'm pretty happy with most aspects of <random>, but I don't seek out arguments. I just use it.
- lmitchell 11y ago
  This is basically the problem with the whole Internet though ;)

wutbrodo 11y ago

No. You can recognize the importance of something and care about it a lot while thinking it's (eg) mediocre. Thinking a problem is important and having an extreme opinion of a solution are entirely different axes.

isolate 11y ago
In my experience, having an extreme opinion of a problem's importance (very important, not important whatsoever) is correlated with having an extreme opinion of a solution (love it, hate it).
- wutbrodo 11y ago
  > having an extreme opinion of a problem's importance (very important, not important whatsoever) is correlated with having an extreme opinion of a solution (love it, hate it). I don't think this is correct either. How would thinking a problem is "not important whatsoever" imply that someone must love or hate any potential solution? I couldn't care less how sports team X fixes their losing record, and yet your claim is that that would somehow correlate with me having extreme opinions (love or hate) about their decision to draft Player Y? Very much to the contrary, I'm apathetic about any solution, which is pretty much the definition of finding a problem "not important whatsoever". Furthermore, I'm not even sure how "extreme opinions of the problem's importance" is relevant to what we're talking about. The original quote was "to the extent that anyone cares about [the problem] at all". That's anywhere from "I care a bit" to "I care a ton", not exclusively "I care a ton". Finally, even if you weren't very wrong about the premise of what we're talking about: "X is correlated with Y" doesn't mean "X implies Y is a tautology (or close to one) because they're the same thing", which is the original statement I was responding to.
  - isolate 11y ago
    >> correlated > imply that someone must Meh, correlation is not causation. Let's include apathy as a third extreme, for both problems and solutions.