"Aldo Cortesi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | I must admit to a fascination with language myself - I even have a degree in | English literature to prove it! To be fair to Steven, I've asked some of my | colleagues here in Sydney about their reactions to the phrase "by eye", and | none of them have yet come up with anything that has the strong pejorative | taint Steven gave it. At any rate, it's clear that the phrase is not well | defined anywhere (not even in the OED), and I'm sure there are substantial | regional variations in interpretation.
As a native American, yes, 'by eye' is sometimes, maybe even often used with a perjorative intent. | In cases like these, however, context is paramount, so I will quote sentences | that started this petty bickering: However, in this context | | > The security implications have not been sufficiently explored. I don't want | > to be in a situation where I need to mechanically "clean" code (say, from a | > submitted patch) with a tool because I can't reliably verify it by eye. I read it just as Aldo claims . | Surely, in context, the meaning is clear? "By eye" here means nothing more nor | less than a literal reading suggests. Taking these sentences to be an argument | for a slip-shod, careless approach to code, as Steven did, is surely perverse. Perhaps because in this context, it is not at all clear what the 'more exact' method would be. Terry Jan Reedy -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list