On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 7:40 PM Ahmed Charles <acharles@outlook.com> wrote:
> Note, that is not what dry means when referring to writing. Dry writing is accurate but perhaps not engaging or creative. It’s admitting that like many references, it may not be fun to read.
I admit that "dry" might mean different things to different people.
However, it is a fact that the manual does not specify all the
behaviors, may be incorrect and confusing, and may contradict itself.
Sometimes some of that gets fixed, which is good.
The rest of your argument goes farther on ignoring the above fact.
Cheers,
V.
Self-contradictions and incorrect information go beyond just being obtuse into the realm of being actual bug-class errors. PUC-Rio has historically been pretty good about making sure those get corrected when they're appropriately reported.
Being confusing is technically not an error. If there is a valid way to read it that has the correct interpretation, then it isn't strictly wrong. Changing things in this case can be controversial, especially if it makes perfect sense to some people or if it's just difficult to understand instead of ambiguous.
Not specifying all of the behaviors is generally considered to be a good thing: specified behaviors place restrictions on future changes. I have to agree with Roberto: an assertion that "we never promised that" is a valid answer, and it's okay if you have to be on your own to take care of how things behave with stuff outside of Lua instead of expecting the maintainers to always cover those bases for you.
/s/ Adam
