Well, by definition, they're trying accentuate some considerations (by
ignoring them pointedly), even though it's possible that all involved
including the original proposer are already aware of them. In doing
this, they mute other considerations, specifically, whatever the
proposer cares about.

So they're a long way of saying "what you care about, I'm ignoring",
which is argumentative and not fun.

By another measure, they very often don't include any new ideas or
interesting presentation, which is a waste of bits. This thread,
specifically, includes lots of *counter examples* to this rule, but it
still generally holds.

Of course, this is somewhat a matter of personal taste, they have their
legitimate uses (to point out unconsidered likely repercussions - "If
you convince those language design fanatics at SqC of this idea, they'll
do it, and #@ will be the next to go, and then...!" ;-), I've used them
too sometimes, usual disclaimers, etc.

Does this help?

Daniel Vainsencher

"Richard A. O'Keefe" <ok at atlas.otago.ac.nz> wrote:
> You want a syntactic analogue?  Here's one:  Smalltalk could get by
> without blocks.  
[snip
]> Can anyone else tell me what is wrong with a polite reductio ad
absurdum
> argument?