Re: Preferences versus defaults

[Amy Gale <amyg -at- grammatech -dot- com>]

Debra Graham wrote:

>[...]
>  
>
>The term "default preferences" seems redundant to me and I began wondering
>whether there was a difference between a default and a preference.  At
>first, I thought perhaps one applies to behavior and the other applies to
>values?  But that distinction didn't seem to hold—default behavior and
>default values both make sense to me.  Then I started thinking about
>options, settings, and so forth, and quickly became overwhelmed (well, not
>really overwhelmed but realized that I didn't have time to explore the
>various "options"). 
>
>[...]
>

It's easy to get tied up in mental knots in this area, isn't it? I feel 
your pain :)

In some systems I see, there are two levels of "defaultage":

1) if you don't specify a value for something (a build tag, say), it 
will "default" to the value stored in the relevant preference.
2) if you haven't specifically set the value for said preference, it 
will have some "default" value (for example, the factory setting).

I try to keep "default" for situation 2, and use verbs like "use" and 
"apply" to describe what happens in situation 1. This helps to mark the 
semantic distinction and reduces the density of "defaults" in the text.

Of course, now that I have made this separation claim  it will doubtless 
be mere hours before I run into a past example of myself doing nothing 
of the sort...

Amy "the default default defaults to the default" Gale


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