Words of wisdom

[erratio]

From one of the mailing lists I frequent:

It's hard to get too dogmatic about whether you
use a shovel with a pointy tip or a flat tip; one works better
for one type of dirt, the other for another... but set two cars
side by side, both just about equally capable, and people will
get pretty passionate. Put two computers, each of which enable
the users to do just about everything that the other can do, and
the passions run even hotter. Two cameras, each capable of taking
a picture that only an expert could differentiate... and maybe
not even then... stand back! The only way to get people more
wound up is to set them arguing about something wholly (ehem)
imaginary like "god".

Comments

[doctorer.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'll grant that they may be more or less equally capable in this example. But since when do capability and quality mean the same things?

Certainly you may have two cars which are both capable of going from here to the shops. But how they do so is not indicated - one may do so without power steering, without air conditioning, without a freaking floor (get there Flintstones style). One is clearly better.

In any case, the context you provided came after my comments, and peripherally to his original statements. Thus based exclusively on those statements, my criticism stands.