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That's a valid constructive critique. The people who are saying it's not necessary because they prefer alternative ways of interacting with their machine are n

That's a valid constructive critique. The people who are saying it's not necessary because they prefer alternative ways of interacting with their machine are not arguing that though. The bit the parent replied to was actually claiming that there is no valid reason to do things this way (with a minor bash script) because there are other ways (slightly mysterious curly braces hacks) that do something similar in some cases... which is just, bizarre?

kd5bjo 7y ago
'Godel_unicode > That's not to say someone can't think of a reason for it, but rather that there are better ways to do what it does. 'Certhas > The bit the parent replied to was actually claiming that there is no valid reason to do things this way … because there are other ways … that do something similar It appears to me that you're reading more into 'Godel_unicode's comment than was written. Something not being necessary does not preclude it being useful, and I haven't seen anyone imply otherwise except for you¹. Working through the double-negative, 'Godel_unicode even explicitly acknowledges that some people may have a reason to do things this way, despite their opinion that it's inferior to their method. ¹ I haven't studied the entire thread, so it's likely I've missed someone's comments.
- Certhas 7y ago
  I read it as: You can think for a reason to do X but doing Y is strictly better, so your reason is invalid. I'm pretty sure what the comment doesn't say, also in tone, is something like: Here are two options, X and Y, sometimes you might prefer one, sometimes the other. Specifically look at the comment that Godel_unicode is disagreeing with. That comment points out that some people might prefer the other solution X for their own reason. The way I read it, Godel_unicode replies that the person who is not using Y is "not thinking things through", and is ignoring infinitely many reasons ("The reasons go on forever.") to do Y. Even though you can come up with "a reason" for X the infinitely many reasons for Y clearly beat it, and thus Y is just objectively better. Maybe the comment was intended more charitably than I read it.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    > I read it as: You can think for a reason to do X but doing Y is strictly better, so your reason is invalid. I think that's a much more strongly-negative interpretation than the text as written calls for. My original post was nothing of the sort, and the reply I think you're referring to was -- to me -- a nudge toward just simply realizing that the standard tools that already exist are often much more powerful than we think, and we can usually get 90+% of the way there without doing something custom. And the 10% remaining isn't usually worth doing something non-standard unless you have a very niche use.
kelnos 7y ago
> The bit the parent replied to was actually claiming that there is no valid reason to do things this way That is not actually what anyone in this thread has claimed.

kd5bjo 7y ago

'Godel_unicode > That's not to say someone can't think of a reason for it, but rather that there are better ways to do what it does. 'Certhas > The bit the parent replied to was actually claiming that there is no valid reason to do things this way … because there are other ways … that do something similar It appears to me that you're reading more into 'Godel_unicode's comment than was written. Something not being necessary does not preclude it being useful, and I haven't seen anyone imply otherwise except for you¹. Working through the double-negative, 'Godel_unicode even explicitly acknowledges that some people may have a reason to do things this way, despite their opinion that it's inferior to their method. ¹ I haven't studied the entire thread, so it's likely I've missed someone's comments.

Certhas 7y ago
I read it as: You can think for a reason to do X but doing Y is strictly better, so your reason is invalid. I'm pretty sure what the comment doesn't say, also in tone, is something like: Here are two options, X and Y, sometimes you might prefer one, sometimes the other. Specifically look at the comment that Godel_unicode is disagreeing with. That comment points out that some people might prefer the other solution X for their own reason. The way I read it, Godel_unicode replies that the person who is not using Y is "not thinking things through", and is ignoring infinitely many reasons ("The reasons go on forever.") to do Y. Even though you can come up with "a reason" for X the infinitely many reasons for Y clearly beat it, and thus Y is just objectively better. Maybe the comment was intended more charitably than I read it.
- kelnos 7y ago
  > I read it as: You can think for a reason to do X but doing Y is strictly better, so your reason is invalid. I think that's a much more strongly-negative interpretation than the text as written calls for. My original post was nothing of the sort, and the reply I think you're referring to was -- to me -- a nudge toward just simply realizing that the standard tools that already exist are often much more powerful than we think, and we can usually get 90+% of the way there without doing something custom. And the 10% remaining isn't usually worth doing something non-standard unless you have a very niche use.

kelnos 7y ago

> The bit the parent replied to was actually claiming that there is no valid reason to do things this way That is not actually what anyone in this thread has claimed.