[REBOL] Re: Correct Behaviour? R.I.P.
From: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 6-Jul-2001 1:54
Hi Jeff,
strange I am replying to Joel's email and writing "Hi Jeff"? Correct -
that's because I would like to know answer to below.
I have really bad suspicious, that once ppl try to resolve some situation,
RT is silent ... and silent ... and silent, and we can here some deep
language design issues explanations only sporadically. We saw it already
several times here - highly academic discussion of Joel, Ladislav, eariler
Elan, and others, long messages, endless reasoning, while maybe one
single/simple email of Carl or someone from RT would solve all of the mess
here.
It's our nature which leads us to temptation to find out how do things work
under the hood and once ppl find some kind of inconsistence, they want to
know if it is bug, intended behavior, but what we can see very often is - RT
is silent or even doesn't reply to feedback issues (except letting bot to
assign a feedback ticket number :-) ...
I just hope you don't mind I dared to express what others probably think but
are too polite to express here :-)
> John Q. thinks that computers can do arithmetic. When he
> evaluates 5280 * 12 to tell his inquisitive daughter how
> many inches are in a mile, it obligingly tells him 63360
> as an answer. But when he tries to evaluate the expression
> 186282 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 to tell the same child how many
> miles are in a light year, he gets
>
> ** Math Error: Math or number overflow
> ** Where: halt-view
> ** Near: 186282 * 60 * 60
>
> Poor John Q. is forced to confront the difference between
> integers and floating-point numbers, which he probably
> never had to think about before.
>
> John Q. has been typing since high school, and thinks that
> an uppercase "A" is just an uppercase "A". Then he hits
> upon the fact that #"A" = "A" is false!
>
> Poor John Q. is forced to confront the difference between
> characters and strings, which he probably never had to
> think about before.
>
> And the list goes on and on and on ...
>
> Therefore, to dismiss a point of view out-of-hand on the grounds
> that it is different from the everyday experience of "the rest
> of the world" really begins to strain credibility.
>
> Jeff, I believe I've said many times that I have considerable
> respect for all of you at RT and for your accomplishments. Even
> though I may not understand all of the design decisions made in
> REBOL (or may disagree with some of the ones I understand ;-)
> I think it is a fine piece of work, and I hope to see it do well.
The same here. Telling something is wrong should not be regarded being an
attack, as it is not :-)
Cheers,
-pekr-
