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List:       mon
Subject:    Re: depends
From:       "Jeremy Wadsack" <jwadsack () wadsack-allen ! com>
Date:       2001-05-17 16:33:13
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Jim Trocki wrote:

> On Thu, 17 May 2001, Dariusz Pietrzak wrote:
> 
> 
>>> Strange limitations?  No, clearly defined syntax.  RTFM.
>> 
>> There is a rule of 'least surprising behaviour'.
>> It's humans that write those configfiles, not machines.
> 
> 
> "least surprising behaviour" is arbitrary, like "do what i mean, not
> what i tell you". it is better to have a mildly unintuitive syntax and
> grammar definition than to rely on arbitrary expectations :)

Not really. If you do any usability testing (although I realize it's 
highly unlikely for a project such as mon) you will find that 'least 
surprising behavior,' 'expected behavior,' etc. are actually pretty well 
defined. Computer users (of certain classes) have expectations in 
software. Computers are powerful and there's no reason they should not 
use that power to make humans' jobs easier.

Take Perl itself for example. In many case Perl does what you expect it 
to do, even if that isn't necessarily something that would come out of a 
strict grammar. That's what makes it a powerful language -- it's easy to 
use because it does what we want it to.



-- 

Jeremy Wadsack
Wadsack-Allen Digital Group

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