Comment by johnisgood
3 months ago
Every time I say RTFM (like in the case of strtok), I get down-voted. Some tools really cannot be dumbed down, and they should not. I do not know why people have an aversion to reading documentation. It is bad.
In the case of strtok, I am not going to implement my own if strtok does what I want it to do, and behaves how I know it does. Why would I?! Sometimes what I need is strtok, sometimes strsep, sometimes I may use strtok_r.
Why would "last one wins" be dumbing down the tool, exactly?
You're doing a big assumption that people are averse to reading documentation.
You are likely downvoted because you prefer to make your opponents look irrational so you can easily defeat them.
Tearing down a straw man is not a welcome discussion tactic around here. Maybe that can help you.
My understanding is that "first one whens" is intended for security. Global config is read first, and then local (per-user) configs are read later. Because the earlier config wins, the per-user configs can't override the global policy.
That helps get it little better, thank you.
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I was only talking about the "RTFM" part.
> Why would "last one wins" be dumbing down the tool, exactly?
I did not refer to that as dumbing down the tool. That said, if you are unsure whether it is first or last one wins, read the documentation. There is no objective intuition here. To me "first one wins" might be intuitive TO YOU, but to me "last one wins" is.
> You're doing a big assumption that people are averse to reading documentation.
Some people definitely are, and they openly tell you that on here, too.
If you look further into my comments where I discuss "strtok", you will see it for yourself.
> You are likely downvoted because you prefer to make your opponents look irrational so you can easily defeat them.
I got down-voted because I claimed strtok is straightforward to use once you have read the documentation. I do not see how I am making them look irrational either (nor is it my intention). I am just trying to encourage people to read the documentation.
One thing a lot of traditionalists like yourself miss (sometimes I think it's on purpose) is that we have limited time.
Modern programming is not like 30 years ago. We have literal hundreds, if not thousands, of bits and pieces to assemble. I couldn't care less what some lone cowboy thought "strtok" should do decades ago. And how genius it seemed to him.
Apropos, why use "strtok" at all in this case, btw? Fine, the function might make perfect sense. The tool's behavior does not.
...But, well, he did made me care ultimately, right? But it's not welcome and now I think less of that person.
But again -- those were different times. To me if you don't do what seems intuitive (and yes I am replying to your comment here after the other and yes I am aware we'll never agree on what's intuitive), defined also broadly as "what many other programs do" then you are just John Wayne-ing your way into my hatred.
Nevermind though. I knew some UNIX cowboys of old. I don't miss them one bit. The way this tool behaves smells very strongly of them.
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