Re: [PATCH 0/6] doc: replace "alice" and "bob" examples

From: Phillip Susi <phill@thesusis.net>
Date: Jun 17, 2021, 15:48 UTC
Message-ID: <87pmwkh4he.fsf@vps.thesusis.net>
In-Reply-To: <60ca6586607f5_602720852@natae.notmuch>

Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> 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?

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>> 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.

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>> 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 ).