On Thu, Jun 17 2021, Phillip Susi wrote: > Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> I have not read cryptography documentation, so for me Alice and Bob are >> simply two illustrative colleagues. > > I have read cryptography documentation and seen Alice and Bob used > commonly. Am I supposed to be confused if I see those names used in > documentation for non cryptographic software? If Alice and Bob work > there, why should they not be used here? Am I missing something? > >>> And as argued in 1/6 for those users who /are/ aware of "Alice and Bob" >>> it's needless distraction. Maybe it's just me, but whenever I read >>> references to them I keep waiting for the cryptography angle to be >>> introduced. None of the uses in our documentation reflect that canonical >>> usage. >> >> It's probably not just you, but the vast majority of readers are >> likely not aware of any cryptographic reference. > > I find it surprising that anyone would be upset that the names Alice and > Bob were being used in a non cryptographic context. Who's upset? Not the author of this patch series, as noted in 1/6 I just think it makes for less confusing reading, since Alice & Bob in particular have implicit meanings you might guess at[1], and aside from that I think it simplifies the example the guide is getting at [2]. >>> There's also just weird things in our documentation fixed by this >>> series, such as referring to a random file tracked by git as "bob" >>> instead of the more obvious "file.txt". >> >> OK, _that_ I agree it's unequivocally an improvement. > > Yea, a file probably shouldn't be called bob... I would probably have > gone with "foo.txt" ( but file.txt is just fine too ). Git's documentation is read by all sorts of audiences, "foo" and "bar" are programmer jargon not obvious to everyone. I wouldn't say don't use it at all, but when a self-descriptive alternative such as file.txt or whatever works perfectly fine as in the case changed in this series, it's better to go with that. 1. http://lore.kernel.org/git/patch-1.6-abbb5b9ba13-20210615T161330Z-avarab@xxxxxxxxx 2. https://lore.kernel.org/git/875yyc5i6x.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
