[r-t] A Ringing Puzzle

[Don Morrison]

On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Graham John <graham at changeringing.co.uk> wrote:
> Allocating these methods a type provides a useful flag when
> categorising and searching for methods in databases though, so
> giving these distinctive properties a name is helpful.

The same argument could be made for a wealth of other properties,
every bit as useful, depending upon what you're trying to do: whether
the method has in course, tenors together falseness; whether it has
palindromic symmetry; whether it has the usual flow of in and out of
course rows (particularly important in minor); etc.

> It is also the case for truth in the plain course. It is also easy
> to add a flag on a database for methods that are false within a
> lead, or are false in the plain course.

By all means, include it as a field in a database, so those that are
doing things for which a particular property is germane can query it.
But making it a part of the name of the method just confuses things,
as whether A is like B depends strongly on the purpose for which you
are comparing them. For some purposes the important thing is that two
ducks have the same colour, but for others it is that their down is
equally fluffy.



-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"Historians are used to modern European professional expectations that
a true scholar knows a lot about not very much."
   -- Diarmid MacCulloch, _Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years_