Bug#935706: lintian: Make tag certainty a programmatic assessment
[cc'ing the bug this time]
Hi Chris,
On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 4:58 PM Chris Lamb <lamby@debian.org> wrote:
>
> I would very much
> suggest we repurpose "severity" here instead of inventing a new term.
That is exactly what I thought you might think (and it is why I
prepared a merge request instead of committing directly).
Just one thought, please: Do you think the term severity may be, well,
too severe?
Ever since Michael Stapelberg called Lintian the policy's
"programmatic embodiment" I have been trying to round its edges. (I
even have a new logo idea, an L-shaped allen wrench instead of a
square.) Is there not another, softer term like "alert level",
"significance" or "relevance" we can use?
Kind regards
Felix
On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 4:58 PM Chris Lamb <lamby@debian.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Felix,
>
> > > it appears to simply encode the currently unhelpful distinction between
> > > "wild-guess", "possible" and "certain" in a new and relatively unfamiliar
> > > way with a slightly ambiguous name.
> >
> > I think this is a case of miscommunication.
> […]
> > Any references to certainty or its values, "wild-guess", "possible"
> > and "certain", are gone. The table you quote is being removed.
>
> Ah... very glad to hear we're on the same page here. I think I was
> misled by the quoting of the table as it appeared to imply that
> "certainty" or something similar would be retained, when that is not
> what is being proposed here.
>
> Regarding the name of this new combined field, we should never forget
> that is not only graphical applications that have a "user interface" —
> even command-line utilities have one, but it is merely encoded in
> ASCII form. Interface design is a long-established field and has
> various hard-won best practices and conventions, more easily noticed
> in GUI programs with regard to visual design, but an oft-neglected and
> extremely important component of a good interface concerns itself with
> the terminology used. For example, words should not surprise or
> confuse the user, and indeed should be as entirely seamless and
> unnoticable as possible. "Don't make me think", the saying goes.
> Another way of putting this is that if the user even consciously has
> to consider the word, it is ipso facto not a good word.
>
> I mention this because I believe "visibility" would not be serving our
> users best. There are examples where a technically-correct name like
> this, even if backed up by a well-meaning dictionary definition might
> very well fit the idea better but we must have some empathy for the
> casual and regular users of Lintian (a very old project, remember!)
> who will be expecting the term "severity", even though that may not
> 100% fit the idea of this new tag (eg. not quite matching the BTS or
> whatever). In other words, if any user of Lintian now thinks questions
> like "where did severities go? what is visibility? how does it
> differ?" then we are not doing our job to the best of our ability.
>
> Anyway, unless I'm misunderstanding something again, I would very much
> suggest we repurpose "severity" here instead of inventing a new term.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> ,''`.
> : :' : Chris Lamb
> `. `'` lamby@debian.org chris-lamb.co.uk
> `-
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