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'Godel_unicode > That's not to say someone can't think of a reason for it, but rather that there are better ways to do what it does.

'Certhas > The bit the parent replied to was actually claiming that there is no valid reason to do things this way … because there are other ways … that do something similar

It appears to me that you're reading more into 'Godel_unicode's comment than was written. Something not being necessary does not preclude it being useful, and I haven't seen anyone imply otherwise except for you¹. Working through the double-negative, 'Godel_unicode even explicitly acknowledges that some people may have a reason to do things this way, despite their opinion that it's inferior to their method.

¹ I haven't studied the entire thread, so it's likely I've missed someone's comments.



I read it as: You can think for a reason to do X but doing Y is strictly better, so your reason is invalid.

I'm pretty sure what the comment doesn't say, also in tone, is something like: Here are two options, X and Y, sometimes you might prefer one, sometimes the other. Specifically look at the comment that Godel_unicode is disagreeing with. That comment points out that some people might prefer the other solution X for their own reason.

The way I read it, Godel_unicode replies that the person who is not using Y is "not thinking things through", and is ignoring infinitely many reasons ("The reasons go on forever.") to do Y. Even though you can come up with "a reason" for X the infinitely many reasons for Y clearly beat it, and thus Y is just objectively better.

Maybe the comment was intended more charitably than I read it.


> I read it as: You can think for a reason to do X but doing Y is strictly better, so your reason is invalid.

I think that's a much more strongly-negative interpretation than the text as written calls for. My original post was nothing of the sort, and the reply I think you're referring to was -- to me -- a nudge toward just simply realizing that the standard tools that already exist are often much more powerful than we think, and we can usually get 90+% of the way there without doing something custom. And the 10% remaining isn't usually worth doing something non-standard unless you have a very niche use.




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