
The Zero, One, Infinity Disease - bkirwi
http://brooker.co.za/blog/2015/04/11/zero-one.html
======
bonobo3000
Yep, really the disease is taking ANY such rule or heuristic and interpreting
it to be valid in all situations or in an extreme form.

The last paragraph is the simplest and most effective solution - start asking
_specific_ (well defined) questions about _your_ system (not all systems or
some other bloggers) and suddenly there is no need for any of these bullshit
heuristics. I love this approach, its the heart of engineering right here.

------
bkirwi
Of course, there really _is_ something special about 0, 1, and Inf -- they're
the kind of numbers that tend to arise from theory, not just from tuning.
Tuning is hugely important for real systems, so an allergy to 'arbitrary'
numbers is not useful; on the other hand, this rule is often a nice heuristic
to keep in mind when you're picking which numbers to expose in your config
files.

~~~
cheatsheet
Also, people do use this stuff to think about their computer systems, so I'm a
little confused at the author's point of instinct and intuition. Most
engineers are trained in analysis of the infinite (calculus), which also
includes rigorous analysis of 0 and 1.

------
tobiasSoftware
As I understand it, "Zero, one, infinity" is not about what numbers should be
coded, it is about what numbers should be hard-coded. The concept is that if
you have a number other than one of those three, then as the author says it is
most likely a number derived from intuition, limits, or current requirements.
All of these can easily change over time, even the value of PI, which might
need to be made more or less precise, or the columns of a sudoku when someone
wants to create a 1-16 challenge sudoku. Thus, all of these numbers not
derived from theory but from tuning should be soft-coded into variables and
placed in one location so they can be easily changed if needed.

------
danellis
By odd coincidence, tomorrow I'm recording the first episode of a podcast
called 'Zero, One, Infinity', so this was a bit weird to see today. If it had
been posted in a couple of days, I think I would have assumed from the title
it was a bad review ;-)

