[erlang-questions] On OTP rand module difference between OTP 19 and OTP 20

zxq9 zxq9@REDACTED
Thu Aug 31 17:45:28 CEST 2017


On 2017年08月31日 木曜日 17:32:44 Attila Rajmund Nohl wrote:
> 2017-08-31 17:27 GMT+02:00 Loïc Hoguin <essen@REDACTED>:
> > On 08/31/2017 05:13 PM, Attila Rajmund Nohl wrote:
> >>
> >> 2017-08-31 15:42 GMT+02:00 Loïc Hoguin <essen@REDACTED>:
> [...]
> >>> I certainly hope this is not the general policy for OTP. We program
> >>> against
> >>> the documentation. The documentation *is* our reality.
> >>
> >>
> >> I disagree. Take this example:
> >> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/732420/9b9f8f2825f1877f/ The printk()
> >> function in the Linux kernel was documented to print new logs to new
> >> lines unless the KERN_CONT option was passed. In reality it didn't
> >> always started new lines and people expected (maybe even relied on)
> >> this - and when the code was updated to match the documentation, they
> >> were genuinely surprised when their code was broken.
> >
> >
> > This story is not about people following the documentation and then have the
> > documentation be "fixed" under their feet without them noticing, it is in
> > fact the complete opposite.
> 
> The moral of the story: people are programming against
> behavior/implementation, not documentation. In these cases fixing the
> implementation instead of the documentation has very real possibility
> of breaking existing programs. Of course, one can tell its users that
> "it's your fault you haven't followed the documentation!" but it
> doesn't necessarily make those users happy...

There was once a boy who always rode his bike on the right side of the streets in his neighborhood. Sure, the signs all said "keep left" but, well, everyone just ignores the signs where he lives.

One day a new sign was in its place that said "keep right".

Now what should he do?

-Craig




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