On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Kurt Harriman <harriman@acm.org> wrote:
> By the way, suggestions which must be carried out without
> question are "orders", not "advice". When a statement,
> meant to be imperative, is phrased softly as advice, it can
> easily be mistaken as optional by newcomers who may not have
> fully grasped the prevailing reality. Thus, commands are
> best stated in clear language.
I think the reason people tend to phrase things in terms of opinions
or advice is because no single person here is able to speak with
complete authority, and those who attempt to do so tend to draw
irritated responses when a softer statement would have passed
unchallenged. At the same time, when two or three people all express
an opinion that we should do X, and especially when some of those
people are committers, it's very difficult to get a patch committed
that does not-X. Maybe this isn't as obvious to newcomers as it could
be, although it's not entirely clear to me how we could make it so
without being heavy-handed about it... it's not that you can never
win an argument of this type; it's just that you need a darn good
reason and some allies, and it's hard to come up with darn good
reasons when the discussion is basically about style.
Having said all that, I sympathize with your frustration; I've been
there a few times myself.
...Robert