Hi,

> My point is that the "style" rules are actually subjective "guidelines"
>> How can guidelines be subjective?

It's not that the "guidelines are subjective" it's that you can apply your
subjective decision process to the problem at hand using the "rules or
guidelines" to assist and potentially guide your choices. But since they
are "subjective guidelines" you have the choice to not follow them. The
choice rests with you and not the rules. The point is your freedom to
choose what is acceptable and what isn't. Strict rules require you to give
up your freedom of choice and defer the decision to what others have
defined as the "rules" for "correct style". Who voted them in as the
abolute one way is right "smalltalk sytle rulers" anyways?

> and not "inherent" in the universe like laws of nature. That's why we
> call them styles. You have yours and I have mine. This is as it should be
> for it would be a boring universe if we were all the same.

>><sigh/>I certainly don't call things style because they are subjective.
Neither would I.

One style of dress is to wear business suits to work. Another style is to
be more casual. Neither is "good" or "correct" except in human terms. Both
are valid as are many other styles of dress. Some styles of dress may be
offensive to others. 

>>After all, when you call something a style you implicitly admit it to
>>various standards of evaluation ("good style", "bad style", "better
>>style"). Now, *certainly* there are modes of evaluation for which the
>>standard of correctness is subjective, e.g., I, personally, might like a
>>certain kind of bad style. Indeed, I might like it *because* it's bad.
The point about styles is that they are not good or bad or better or
whatever but they are just the way they are. The "various standards of
evaluation" are human judgement. We can call something a good style or a
bad style (too many temporary variables in a method where many is less than
5) but it's our perception and jugement that makes it good or bad. There is
nothing in the universe that says the style is good or bad. The universe
just doesn't care about it. However, we humans often to care and thus good
style, bad style and "my style is better than your style" type of
sillyness.

>>Of course, this is off topic now :). For the interested, I strongly
>>recommend Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" for an account of matters of
>>taste where there *is*, and properly so, disputatum.

>>Cheers,
>>Bijan Parisa.
Well if you drink too much you may loose all your sense of taste... ;--)

All the best,

Peter William Lount
http://www.smalltalk.org
peter at smalltalk.org