Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: taglines vs explicit

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Anderson <address@hidden> writes:

    >> As for the question, I don't think [the term "tagline"]
    >> misleads anybody.  There are a number of people who have very
    >> strong opinions about their needs, and they find some of the
    >> implications of tagline undesirable.  I don't see much argument
    >> about tagline from most people.  What's the problem?

    Robert> I think you haven't been following the list lately.  Try
    Robert> catching up first.

Sheesh.  Andrea's obvious predisposition to explicit tagging[1] (or
Davide's) has no relation to whether the _name_ "tagline" is confusing
to many users.

Personally I still don't much like tagline mode[2], but that doesn't
stop me from noticing that the majority thinks very differently from
me, and that generally they "get" the overall idea, and proceed to
asking good questions about corner cases they expect to encounter.

I think that for short "keyword" names, it makes sense to consider the
primary usage.  For tagline, the intended usage is embedded tags where
possible, and explicit tags where not.  Since mostly we're interested
in source, and all modern languages permit comments, embedded tags are
"normal", and "tagline" is descriptive of that.

"Implicit" is actually a pretty good name to indicate flexibility, as
it (to me, anyway) presumes the use of explicit statements where
needed.  But that's taken, and backward compatibility doesn't really
allow us to obsolete it, I guess.


Footnotes: 
[1]  And his imprecise English in implicitly differentiating between
what he considers a "generally good idea" and what "is required to
fill his perceived needs".  However, he has explicitly said that his
personal needs are what he's talking about, and acknowledged the
relevant properties of tagline.  He just doesn't value them at all.

[2]  Which, to the extent that it is residual prejudice, has a lot to
do with being familiar with "implicit" and very little to do with the
word "tagline".

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