[r-t] Poll on consecutive blows in the same position

[Don Morrison]

On Sat, Dec 27, 2014 at 7:49 PM, Matthew Frye <matthew at frye.org.uk> wrote:
> I don't think most of the things we are discussing can be sensibly
> applied to rule-based methods. I think that's a whole other
> discussion to be had at a whole other time.

So, the restrictions we're placing on things apply only to the kinds
of things for which we wish to apply these restrictions, and things to
which these restrictions don't apply are a different kind of thing? It
all sounds shockingly similar to the current state of affairs in the
CCCBR decisions where a trivial variant of a method suddenly turns
into a non-method block because it has five consecutive blows in the
same place, or is false if you ring N-1 consecutive plain leads, or
otherwise falls afoul of some restriction or other.

There's something worrying about placing restrictions on methods that
only apply to some methods, and that other methods get a whole
different set of rules.

Perhaps the problem is just the direction we're coming from. Perhaps
it would work better if instead of saying "a method may not have
property X" we instead approached it from a direction something like

- a method is a ....[insert some extremely broad wording here]

- a divisible method [or whatever word you want to use for a "normal"
method] is a method such that [insert appropriate words here], that
further has property X, property Y and property Z [where one of the
properties might be no bell staying put in every change of a
division].

That makes it explicitly descriptive instead of proscriptive.

You still need to be careful that property Z doesn't chuck things out
of the divisible method class arbitrarily, but it seems a more sensible
starting point than saying "all methods must have property X" and
then, when they don't, solving the impasse by just sticking our heads
into the "oh, but I wasn't talking about YOUR kind of methods" sand.


-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"Things that try to look like things often do look more like
things than things. Well-known fact."   -- Terry Pratchett, _Wyrd Sisters_