Re: [Gnu-arch-users] not everyone likes implicit shortcuts

[zander]

On Sun, Nov 09, 2003 at 08:08:18AM -0800, Tom Lord wrote:
> 
> 
>     > From: address@hidden
> 
>     [on defaults and shortcuts]
> 
>     > Some years ago I was in Germany with a group of people; we wanted to
>     > go from one end of town to another, so we decided to take the bus.
>     > The person buying the tickets asked for one ticket for 10 persons.
>     > The busdriver answered that he did not have any.
>     > The person buying then asked for 2 tickets for 5 persons. (which he
>     > luckely saw behind the driver)
>     > We got the tickets and were on our way.
> 
>     > What we were all very surprised about was that the busdriver did not
>     > think with us; he was not going to suggest there were 5-person tickets
>     > and was just going to wait untill we ordered; be it 10 1-person tickets
>     > for all he cared.
> 
>     > Your idea that you should be able to tell the bus driver exactly what
>     > you want is fine with me, no problem here.
>     > But please accept that most of us don't want to investigate what it
>     > is that the busdriver is waiting for; just give me a good default and
>     > I am on my way.
> 
> That's not a good analogy for this case.   A better one would be
> something like:
> 
[snip example where a wrong default was provided]


Good defaults are hard, yes.  They also don't end the rule that if the
application can't make a decision for the user he must ask the user.

There is a _big_ distance between these two and much space to find the best
rules.

For example; tla import can ask when no files are added if all source
files should be automatically added.
It makes our lifes a lot easier and gives us that 'finished' feeling that
I still miss when working with tla.

Right, this is not a default, but the general idea is not that different..

-- 
Thomas Zander