# What is the Raging Debate in your area of geekery? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 16, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981 "2006-08-16T17:48:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/41 "2006-08-17T02:40:14Z")
[Giving up seats on the bus](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=383239) and [holding doors open for women](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=383420) - antiquated sexism or not? … no, i don’t get out much… ---
**Author:** ![JpnDude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@JpnDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JpnDude)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/42 "2006-08-17T02:44:33Z")
The ongoing problems between the Walt Disney Company and Oriental Land Company, which owns, operates and maintains Tokyo Disney Resort. ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/43 "2006-08-17T03:33:10Z")
Will the Car of Tomorrow really reduce costs, increase safety AND eliminate the “aero push?” Are the “Buschwhackers” destroying the Busch Series? Should the schedule include more road courses, and if so, at the expense of which tracks? ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/44 "2006-08-17T04:06:33Z")
Do dog geeks get to play? In my dog geek world- there are two major controversies… My breed of choice are working Border Collies- so the first controversy is pro-AKC vs. pro-ABCA (the working registry). Most Border Collie folk, myself included, feel that trotting a border collie around a grassy ring and comparing it’s fluffiness (or lack thereof) to the other dogs trotting mindlessly is obscene and directly conflicts with everything a working dog should be. The second controversy is among us working folks and it boils down to sheepdog vs. cowdog. _Some_ sheepdog folk think that the cow dog folk favor overly aggressive, poorly trained dogs while _some_ cow dog folk think that sheepdog people favor weak dogs that get by on training but no real courage or skill. Surprisingly, I’ve been in much nastier battles over this (I have dogs that are better on cows and dogs that are better on sheep but no weak or viscious dogs) than the AKC thing that I feel far more strongly about. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/45 "2006-08-17T05:09:03Z")
Whether psychotropic drugs do or do not have such specific effects, and must be or must not be so delicately calibrated for dosage, that jails do not meet the applicable legal standard of care if they swich mentally ill inmates over to generics. Brand-name psych drugs = huge cost issue for corrections. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/46 "2006-08-17T06:56:24Z")
NOW we’re talking geekery with context! This is interesting stuff! **Pochacco** - can you give us any more on this? I didn’t even know there was videogame theorists! What are the uses / implications of breaking down a game one way or the other? **NinetyWt** - why can’t you do both? **Lissa** - does the museum lose money by not exhibiting that piece? \*\*Rysto \*\* your argument makes sense - why would others argue otherwise? **Smokinjbc** - interesting - makes sense that a utilitarian dog would have controversies about showing and and about its proper use… **MostlyClueless** - so the fandom was not amused? How is that playing out (“playing out” with Legos - lordy am I not funny…)? What are the upset fans doing? Interesting stuff… ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/47 "2006-08-17T07:20:35Z")
Amongst the Star Wars fandom, EU vs. G-Canon seems to be a hot issue from time to time (I’m of the opinion that Kevin J Anderson is a talentless hack, and in any case, Star Wars is George Lucas’ universe, so whatever he says is correct, regardless of whether or not it conflicts with Crix Madine vs. the Space Weasels or Attack of the Black Hole Beaurocrats.) Amongst Babylon 5 fans: Green or Purple? 😉 Though I haven’t been very active in the Trek community for some years, I have seen many a heated debate online about relative size/power of ships (ie: Whether or not the USS Defiant is more powerful than the Enterprise E. Yes, they argue about that), and about various design classification minuate (Is the Enterprise A a Constitution Class starship, a Constitution Refit, a Yorktown Class Starship, or an Enterprise Class Starship? Along with numerous other variations). And then you have the classic Star Trek vs. Star Wars debates. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/48 "2006-08-17T07:30:24Z")
[QUOTE=lizardling] Serial commas or no serial commas? Personally, I’m a proponent of the serial comma. [/QUOTE] Is that the issue of wheter or not to put a comma before the “and” in a list? For example: apples, pears, bannanas[,] and pineapples. ---
**Author:** ![bitwise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@bitwise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bitwise)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/49 "2006-08-17T07:32:36Z")
[QUOTE=Rysto] Tabs vs. spaces in source code. When we write programming code, it’s almost always indented something like this: ```auto int main(int argc, char ** argv) { if(someCondition) { print("Hello"); } else if(somethingElse) { print("Hi"); } else { print("Nothing"); } } ``` The controversial part is what character(s) to use to do the indentations. Some people like to use a single tab character for each level of indentation. Some people prefer to use a number of space characters. Four spaces is common, but others prefer 3, or 2, or even 8. It’s important to choose one indentation style for a single programming project, because mixing tabs with spaces leads to a horrific mess if the width of a tab is not the same as the number of spaces for each indentation level. My opinion? Tabs are way better. If one programmer prefers an indentation of 8 spaces, while another prefers 2 spaces, they can just configure their editors to display the tabs differently. If you choose to use spaces, everybody has to use the same width. Proponents of spaces say that some editors can’t handle tabs, but so long as your editor isn’t from the 80s, you should be ok. [/QUOTE] Tabs don’t work well when aligning arguments (after the first line) to functions with the opening parenthesis, or when aligning operators after the equal sign, or when aligning multiple conditions in an if-statement or while-statement. The problem is that most editors will use an algorithm like this. If you want to align your function argument at the 23 character and your tab stop is 4, then it will insert 5 tabs and 3 spaces. Now, when someone with a tab stop of 8 opens the file, the arguments will be pushed all the way to the right. The best method I’ve heard is to use tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment. For each level of indentation, e.g., the body of an if-statement or a loop, use a tab. Within that level, use spaces. For instance, if you want to align an argument 15 characters into the body of 2nd-level if-statement, use 2 tabs and 15 spaces. However, I have not seen any editor that supports this. ---
**Author:** ![bitwise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@bitwise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bitwise)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/50 "2006-08-17T07:48:11Z")
Another war of religion that is popular lately is “static vs dynamic typing”. [http://mindview.net/WebLog/log-0052](http://mindview.net/WebLog/log-0052) ---
**Author:** ![MostlyClueless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@MostlyClueless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MostlyClueless)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/51 "2006-08-17T08:35:58Z")
[QUOTE=WordMan] so the fandom was not amused? How is that playing out? What are the upset fans doing? Interesting stuff… [/QUOTE] Well, there are plenty of lego fans with sizeable lego collections out there. The two biggest groups seem to be the [castleheads](http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1570990) and the [space warriors](http://www.truedimensions.com/lego/customs/2010/leonov.jpg)\*. Both use grey a lot, to simulate respectively stone and metal. Most fans have collected Lego bricks for decades. There have been petitions, people threatening to quit the lego hobby alltogether and a lot of nasty flamewars. An open letter to the CEO, signed by hundreds of fans, also didn’t yield much. On bricklink (a kind of ebay-like site where lego fans can sell and buy individual bricks) the prices of old gray spiked, while new grey (being new and rare) also isn’t cheap. But as it’s now 2006 it’s clear that Lego won’t be going back. They’ve issued a statement to the fans that they were wrong and they shouldn’t have done it, but they can’t undo what’s done. And every once in a while we hear that Lego still has warehouses of old grey bricks it doesn’t know what to do with… but we’re getting over it. [QUOTE=Subway Prophet] I’m not sure, I think it’s probably verboten to mention other community websites here… but I bet you and I know each other from LUGNET. 🙂 [/QUOTE] I believe it’s OK as long as one doesn’t start/continue a board war. Maybe I’ve seen you around, but usually I don’t post that often. If I might inquire, who are you? I’m [this guy](http://news.lugnet.com/?q=peer+kreuger). \*no official terms, but you get the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/52 "2006-08-17T09:31:06Z")
Er, yeah, so my World of Warcraft guild… Should we or should we not discontinue the use of DKP for blues dropping in ZG? Because we’re all the way through Molten Core and that gear is way better than ZG, so if we have newbie or alts that we wanna run through, we should be just be giving them the gear to get them up to the level to run MC. On the other hand, WE all gave up DKP (Dragon Kill Points, or a point system to divide up loot fairly) for the blues we got in ZG, even if we dusted them later, so… Also, should rogues have precedence over warriors on daggers in the DKP system, or not? Also…some of the strategies we want to try in Black Wing Lair…will they or won’t they work for us or will they wipe the raid? Cause we’re in Australia and have higher lags, and some of the strats will probably only work with low lag times, and so… Yeah, I’m’a geek. Cheers, G ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/53 "2006-08-17T10:15:33Z")
[QUOTE=lizardling] Serial commas or no serial commas? Personally, I’m a proponent of the serial comma. [/QUOTE] I was going to post the same thing. Personally, I’m an anti-serialist by upbringing. However, I do recognize that serial commas can make complex lists (particularly listing groups of groups) much more readable, and have come to accept that not everyone who uses them is a prepubescent proto-hominid who, when not writing, is primarily occupied with the task of smearing feces over the walls of his cage. I have even, on rare occasion… used them myself… But it makes me feel dirty and ashamed afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![Subway\_Prophet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Subway\_Prophet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subway_Prophet)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/54 "2006-08-17T12:12:36Z")
[QUOTE=MostlyClueless] I believe it’s OK as long as one doesn’t start/continue a board war. Maybe I’ve seen you around, but usually I don’t post that often. If I might inquire, who are you? I’m [this guy](http://news.lugnet.com/?q=peer+kreuger). [/QUOTE] Well met! I don’t recognize your name, but I dropped off Lugnet about 4 or 5 years ago. I have a huge appreciation for your building style - I was one of the first people to advocate using Tom McDonald’s “SNOT” term (Studs Not On Top), and I was pretty involved with microscale building, especially with mecha and such. I won’t link to my posts, but if you check out my email address it’s not too difficult to figure out who I am. :o Oh, I almost forgot. Space. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Subway\_Prophet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Subway\_Prophet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subway_Prophet)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/55 "2006-08-17T12:21:13Z")
[QUOTE=bitwise] The best method I’ve heard is to use tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment. For each level of indentation, e.g., the body of an if-statement or a loop, use a tab. Within that level, use spaces. For instance, if you want to align an argument 15 characters into the body of 2nd-level if-statement, use 2 tabs and 15 spaces. However, I have not seen any editor that supports this. [/QUOTE] This debate is complicated by significant whitespace in the otherwise excellent language Python. (Actually, I really like significant whitespace now, but I still see how it bugs the crap out of people.) I feel the situation would be simpler if tabs had been defined as an 8-character space. I know that 8-char intention plays hell with code that (a) has deeply-nested blocks and (b) is destined for the office printer, but if it weren’t variable in width then it’d be much easier to reliably pad out indentation that aren’t nice multiples of 8. That said, I’ve given up on aligning my parameter lists with the opening parentheses. I do a variation of K&R-style indenting where the first parameter is indented twice on the next line, for example: ```auto void *fubarSwapFile( HandleTypeA *param1, HandleTypeB *param2 ) { for( i = 0; i < HandleTypeA->blahblahblah; i++ ) { doSomethingWithI(i); } } ``` It’s not pretty, but it’s more readable to me. ---
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/56 "2006-08-17T13:29:36Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] Snape’s a good guy/Snape’s a bad guy. What the hell happened to Cassandra Cain? [/QUOTE] Since you’re obviously talking Harry Potter, did you mean Cassandra Clare (once Cassandra Clair)? Because that is kind of a long story. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/57 "2006-08-17T13:36:50Z")
The old grey/bluish grey debate might be the geekiest dispute, but the one that burns most fiercely is surely the Lego/Lego **s** one, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/58 "2006-08-17T13:44:51Z")
[QUOTE=WordMan] **Lissa** - does the museum lose money by not exhibiting that piece? [/QUOTE] Not at all. I doubt if most people know that it’s missing. Anyone who wants to see it has only to ask-- we’ll bring it out of storage if anyone wants to study it. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/59 "2006-08-17T14:05:00Z")
[QUOTE=samm] Well, truthfully, the rollkur debate sounds a LOT like the ballroom dancing debate. Which is preferable, the muscular, athletic, but arguably unbalanced rollkur style, or the subtle, exquisitely balanced, but less visually exciting classical style? [/QUOTE] Or, which is preferable, the muscular, athletic, but arguably unbalanced 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons rules, or the subtle, exquisitely balanced, but less visually exciting 4th edition rules?? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/60 "2006-08-17T16:22:11Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] The old grey/bluish grey debate might be the geekiest dispute, but the one that burns most fiercely is surely the Lego/Lego **s** one, isn’t it? [/QUOTE] There is no debate - “Legos” is an abomination, by company mandate. My geekery doesn’t have much Raging Debate, other than a 1600 or 1650 cutoff (1650! and Milipitas can kiss my axe), and the “Is Heavy a real Martial Art?” one. I guess the “is Cut&Thrust going to kill Heavy” one has come up, but it’s not serious. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981.md?page=4)