Updated 2014-04-10 10:42:41 by EMJ

The number 2, I guess. Should I add a few definitions from the dictionary?

A little cleaning and removal of such odd pages wouldn't hurt this wiki board...

"2" is one of the four valid numbers to use when programming. The others are "0", "1" and "many". However, using "2" instead of "many" is often a mistake. Sometimes, adding a special case as a variation of the general is appropriate. In most instances, though, what starts out as a single special case soon is joined by another, making a simple either/or decision no longer the right way to do things. Suddenly one is faced with reanalyzing the problem in order to turn a "2" into a "many". If "2" is deprecated and not used unless it's absolutely correct, and "many" is used wherever there is a possibility of multiple options, such traps are avoided.

For more on the subject, see http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TwoIsAnImpossibleNumber and http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZeroOneInfinityRule

[Category Rubbish] RS: Is it? Not the typical Wiki page, I agree, but it sure gives food for thought - especially the c2.com link...

US Seconded. I propose Category Design. - RS: However, such numeric titles have the peculiarity that you can't specify them in a URL (it would be misunderstood as page number of the Search page - but when you type "2" in there again, you get this page first, at least ;-).

LES I proposed Category Rubbish. There was nothing here but "2" when I first found this page. There are many empty pages in the wiki. Some have obviously "on-topic" titles. They're just empty, waiting for content. But I have seen some with some very random and/or meaningless titles and no content. These look like rubbish to me. On the other hand, it turns out the wiki Tcl'ers seem to manage to make something interesting out of anything, like 2 and Star Trek. :-)

RS explains: Every time you put something in brackets on a Wiki page (except preformatted text), the content of the brackets is taken as a potential page title, and assigned a page number. I guess this is how this page 2 was created. When someone clicks on the blue brackets around a not-yet existing page title, it is physically created, and presented to him for editing.

FW proposes that Wiki page #2 is Search, perhaps the most-visited page on the Wiki next to 0 (The Tcler's Wiki) and 4 (Recent Changes), so it's not unlikely that someone, in some arcane context, couldn't distinguish page name and number.