[Dylan16807]

And if I ask "What the heck is a camry?", then that vague description is much better than nothing.

> Phabricator was a (very) different take on the same class of tooling as GitLab: source code management, task management, code reviews etc integrated.

Great. If you made that comment 11 hours ago then maybe some downvotes on smitty1e would have been justified. Instead it's "how dare you improve the situation somewhat!".

[dmitriid]

> that vague description is much better than nothing.

It's not "better than nothing". It, itself, is nothing at best.

[Dylan16807]

Pretend the initial comment didn't say LAMP but just said "web app". That's clearly not useless, right? You can tell from context that it must be software, but "web app" is an obvious improvement from there.

You could argue that "LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) application" instead of "web app" adds nothing more than "web app", and I won't fight you on that.

But surely it's still at least as good as "web app"!

Also "that vague description" was referring to "cage with an engine and wheels". It's crazy to say that's a useless description, when the starting point is "anything in the world".

[dmitriid]

> Pretend the initial comment didn't say LAMP but just said "web app". That's clearly not useless, right?

Yes. Yes, it is useless.

> You can tell from context that it must be software, but "web app" is an obvious improvement from there.

No. No, it's not. It still provides exactly zero context, and contributes exactly zero to the discussion.

> But surely it's still at least as good as "web app"!

Yes. Yes, it is: it contrbutes just as much, nothing.

> Also "that vague description" was referring to "cage with an engine and wheels".

Are we still talking about a top-level comment on a link that says "Phacility is winding down, Phabricator no longer actively maintained"?

So, let me see your alternatives:

- "Phabricator is a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) application."

What does this contribute, exactly? Nothing. It's an out-of-context statement that doesn't describe what Phabricator actually is, and why this is relevant to the actual news, of, you know, "Phacility winding down, Phabricator no longer actively maintained"

- just said "web app"

What does this contribute, exactly? Nothing. It's an out-of-context statement that doesn't describe what Phabricator actually is, and why this is relevant to the actual news, of, you know, "Phacility winding down, Phabricator no longer actively maintained"

So, no. It's not "better than nothing". Because it is just that, nothing.

[Dylan16807]

I really don't understand why you think "web app" is not better than "software?" as a description. But I can't think of any way to convince you, so oh well.

>> Also "that vague description" was referring to "cage with an engine and wheels".

> Are we still talking about a top-level comment on a link that says "Phacility is winding down, Phabricator no longer actively maintained"?

Phabricator is the overall topic. But the line you quoted was responding to a specific argument, which said "the description is about as useful as describing a car as an cage with an engine and wheels". That's why the line you quoted had the word "camry" in it, in the part you cut out.

[dmitriid]

> Phabricator is the overall topic.

The topic is literally "Phacility is winding down, Phabricator no longer actively maintained".

> That's why the line you quoted had the word "camry" in it, in the part you cut out.

Doesn't really matter whether I cut it out or not. The original comment on the topic had as much relevance, context, or usefulness, as describing a car as a "cage on wheels": exactly zero.

And if you asked "What the hell is Camry?", and the answer was "a cage of wheels", that answer would still have no usefulness whatsoever. It would even be actively unuseful. Because this is a cage on wheels: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81ra8W7ndGL..., and this is a Camry: https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/5/2020/01/2020-Toyo...

[Dylan16807]

> The topic is literally

...yes we agree.

> It would even be actively unuseful. Because this is a cage on wheels

You can go argue with eitland if you want, but their intent was a phrase that could signal "a car, a truck, a trailer with a power generator, etc."

As in a phrase that's vague but correct. I'd rather know something vague than know nothing.

I agree that being misleading is bad. But the LAMP comment wasn't misleading.

By the way, do you ever care if programs are web apps? If no, that's crazy, it matters a lot to how you can use it. If yes, then what is the difference between the situations you care and someone explaining phabricator?

If someone explained what you do with phabricator, but left it ambiguous whether you run it on your desktop or on a webserver, wouldn't you feel like that explanation was missing something?

-

Let's say someone had a list of facts about Phabricator to provide context:

1. It's software.

2. It's a web app. This also implies 1.

3. It's used for code and task management.

4. It uses linux, apache, mysql, php. This also implies 2.

When I go in knowing nothing, most of these facts are useful.

It's possible to guess from the article that it's software, but saying fact 1 is still good in making that clear.

Saying 1+2 gives even more info and makes it easier to understand the situation.

Saying 3 is also useful to understanding.

Saying 1+2+3 combines to give a great picture.

Once you've said all those, adding 4 doesn't help much.

But if someone didn't already know the previous facts, saying 4 also implies 1+2. Which is way better than nothing.