On 2010-09-30, RG <rnospa...@flownet.com> wrote: > Of course. Computers always do only exactly what you ask of them. On > this view there is, by definition, no such thing as a bug, only > specifications that don't correspond to one's intentions.
f00f. That said... I think you're missing Keith's point. > Unfortunately, correspondence to intentions is the thing that actually > matters when writing code. Yes. Nonetheless, the maximum() function does exactly what it is intended to do *with the inputs it receives*. The failure is outside the function; it did the right thing with the data actually passed to it, the problem was a user misunderstanding as to what data were being passed to it. So there's a bug -- there's code which does not do what it was intended to do. However, that bug is in the caller, not in the maximum() function. This is an important distinction -- it means we can write a function which performs that function reliably. Now we just need to figure out how to call it with valid data... :) -s -- Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nos...@seebs.net http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated! I am not speaking for my employer, although they do rent some of my opinions. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list