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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Safety-critical development in Ada and Eiffel
Date: 1997/08/23
Message-ID: <dewar.872348870@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 268190646
References: <33E9ADE9.4709@flash.net> <EEsF5y.F5H@syd.csa.com.au>
 <33FE513A.5180@pseserv3.fw.hac.com>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.eiffel
Date: 1997-08-23T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Wes says

<<If someone says X is obvious, when many people do not see X, then
someone doesn't define obvious the same way I do.....>>


That's not quite so simple an issue. The word obvious has to be defined
for a particular subset of people. What is obvious to nuclear engineers,
or for that matter to experts in automobile tire repair, may not be
obvious to me, but that does not mean the word is being used in a strange
way.

I think we all from time to time make the mistake of not defining clearly
what the domain is for the use of the word obvious. FOr example, there
are things about the definition of Ada at the RM level that are indeed
obvious to the ARG members, and others with this kind of exposure to the
RM, but not generally obvious, even to skilled programmers.

Consequently, the word obvious is probably better avoided, unless you are
very careful to say what the claimed domain is (I have been trying to
avoid using the O-word, even when things are quite O to me :-)