OT: Crazy Programming

[Donn Cave]

Quoth "James J. Besemer" <jb at cascade-sys.com>:
...
| Of course, there are some matters that are purely subjective.  I think the
| difference is when humans begin to pass judgement on things, rather than
| merely measure them.  E.g,, I can imagine two similar wines of equal
| overall quality.  Some people will prefer one and others may prefer
| another.  Make it easy and say the wines were a red and a white and some
| people's preferences will be even more pronounced.  That's not to say one
| wine is better than the other, it's mere subjective Judgement -- a matter
| of taste.  But there are objective qualities that separate the wines
| (e.g., acid, sugar and tannin levels) that form an objective basis for the
| subjective judgement.  Measurement is (can be) objective but judgement by
| it's nature is subjective.  Measurement implies an objective framework of
| reference while judgement generally implies extrapolation beyond commonly
| agreed upon criteria.

What does "subjective" mean?  Applicable only to the individual self
and without relevance to anyone else?  If so, then I think I'm hearing
that a lot of what we call subjective, isn't.  Presumably because we
aren't all so different after all, and though we don't fully understand
the basis for our reactions to things, that basis is still shared by
any being like us.

In this analysis, we don't just happen to think Python code looks
better because of some inexplicable individual quirk.  That seems
reasonable to me.  But then, what about list comprehensions?

	Donn Cave, donn at drizzle.com