Re: [Gnu-arch-users] fixing the problem of posting to the old mailing list

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Christian" == Christian Ullrich <address@hidden> writes:

    >> Principle of Least Surprise: also wrong, in my experience.
    >> Since most lists "munge" it's what I expect.

    Christian> To paraphrase Linus Torvalds: Shut up and show me the
    Christian> numbers.

    Christian> I'm currently on about twenty lists. Not a single one
    Christian> of them munges.

So what?  Me too ... but, uh, I run 9 of the 18 lists I'm currently
reading.  ;-)

Anyway, I think he probably _could_ show you the numbers, over all
lists.  But that's neither here nor there for two reasons.  First, he
won't.  "Showing the numbers" is the kind of thing RFC writers do.
Advocates of reply-to munging have never written an RFC.  Second, more
important, he doesn't understand the principle of least surprise.

The point is that the principle of least surprise is not about "what
everybody does and therefore is used to".  Never has been, never will
be.  People (and even more advanced animals, like rats and dogs) can
be _trained_ to expect almost anything.  So "it's not what I'm used
to" is simply not a violation of the Principle of Least Surprise.


-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
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