The Whiteboard

@enderland happy to have any good concoctions of any sort you care to come up with. I should measure the amount of raw ginger I use for making a proper fresh ginger tea and add that..

enderland

I also really like water. so... :-)

where I live has amazing tap water

@MichaelT github.com/the-whiteboard/the-whiteboard.github.io/issues/12

I was writing that one right as you said that hah

user55340

@enderland github.com/the-whiteboard/the-whiteboard.github.io/issues/2 - duplicate?

user55340

Though different focus possibly.

Jimmy Hoffa

@enderland pshaw; my tap water was snow 2 hours ago

enderland

@MichaelT I think they are different, one is more future speaking and I think the one you put is actually a useful thing - learning historical things can be useful (and I'd be curious what you'd put there, too :)

user55340

12:28 AM

@enderland I am curious too.

enderland

Even knowing bash is really, really useful (or perl/python/something-you-can-write-scripts-easily-too about)

user55340

Anyways... its Friday. In Wisconsin. During Lent. Fish.

Jimmy Hoffa

Feb 5 at 15:18, by Jimmy Hoffa

If the problem is: You have nothing to set your TV on, then patterns are hammers, nails, and boards. You can put a bunch of them on the ground and set the TV on that, but that's the shittiest TV stand ever.

in VBA Rubberducking, 5 hours ago, by Duga

> lol, oops!

@Duga got a sense of humor

enderland

@JimmyHoffa that was the comment text :P

Jimmy Hoffa

say what you will, I think it's great that @Duga is so chatty.

enderland

12:39 AM

wow homepage is devastated

11/50 questions at +1 or higher

user55340

12:51 AM

user55340

@JimmyHoffa ^^

user55340

2:11 AM

@JimmyHoffa Documentation on jekyll posts: jekyllrb.com/docs/posts

Jimmy Hoffa

3:48 AM

@MichaelT not cool, my chrome auto-complete for "the whiteb" now has like 4 different things. It took me a solid 5 seconds to figure out how to get here

user55340

@JimmyHoffa Have a scotch.

Jimmy Hoffa

@MichaelT glass of Calvados Apple Brandy- I've really come to like it quite a lot

user55340

> Italian Cranberry Spice
Aperol, Lillet Blanc, muddled cranberries and orange, Wisconsin apple cider, candied ginger.

user55340

^^ Delicious.

user55340

Aperol is a bitter orange aperitif. Lillet Blanc is another orange aperitif.

user55340

4:07 AM

user55340

@enderland Glen's answer to that question. ^^

user55340

Though if we can persuade @GlenH7 to do the git thing and expand on it...

user55340

4:25 AM

@enderland @JimmyHoffa @Ampt - I've started the-whiteboard wiki page too with the various ground rules. I can also write on tutorial-esque information for using jekyll if desired.

amon

11:02 AM

@Ixrec your intuition is correct – static functions are just as testable as member functions or virtual member functions. However, they tend to make the overall design untestable. Whenever there is a static dependency that I cannot swap at runtime, testing becomes a major hassle (and will be neglected).

Therefore it is important that code you want to be testable has no impure static dependencies, where impure means making network requests, accessing databases, or doing anything else that is unfavourable in tests.

If you don't want to go full DI, you can largely solve that by expressing your dependencies as function pointers/functor objects that default to the static dependency, but can be overridden to inject test data or test spies. See lukasatkinson.de/2016/extract-your-dependencies for a longer discussion.

gnat

@Ixrec that claim comes from folks like me and frankly, more accurate wording would probably be that instance methods are much easier to test in Java. Last time when I bumped into it was less than a month ago. I felt too lazy to change some static stuff to instance so I googled for how to test it. I found 3 or 4 recipes, studied them and decided that it's even more work. Took me like 2-3 hours to change static to instance and add tests. It is honestly so much easier in Java

amon

11:25 AM

@gnat what specifically is the relevant difference in Java? Off hand, I see little qualitative difference between "result = Foo.operation(x)" and "Foo foo = new Foo(); result = foo.operation(x)" in the context of a test.

Ixrec

11:36 AM

this is starting to sound like a good main site question

maybe it's because C++ macro magic lets you mock out whatever even without DI, and in a super-dynamic language like Javascript classes are also objects, but Java has neither of those?

though Java does have reflection

gnat

12:05 PM

17

A: Make methods that do not depend on instance fields, static?

Note that IDEA has this inspection for Java as well, it is called Method may be 'static', This inspection reports any methods which may safely be made static. A method may be static if it doesn't reference any of its class' non static methods and non static fields and isn't overridden in a su...

Ixrec

ExpandoMetaClass lol

gnat

@amon it's hard to describe, easiest way to find out is to experience. There are tons resources on the web explaining the differences, with examples and explanations and stuff like that. And I have read them a lot and they didn't convince me. It's only when I started coding lots of things where (unit) testing mattered I started bumping into cases that made me say "ah! so that is what that article was about"

Ixrec

yeah, the testability part of your answer there isn't convincing me either

skimming the Google blog post, it seems to be relying on the assumption that the only way to mock anything is via DI

gnat

probably easiest example to demonstrate is using app configuration. It's very tempting to do it like, Config.get() in your code and feel like nothing left to worry in your code. But thing is, config is expected to be edited and change behavior of the code and when you start thinking on how to test it, first thing you bump into is, how do you supply different values that may get in there, possibly hundreds of these values...

...The easiest way out testability wise is to drop that static call and pass, say instance of Properties via constructor

Ixrec

12:27 PM

I guess it's true that DI is the easiest way to mock dependencies, that's pretty much the only technique I use in JS because I haven't felt the need for more

though I am doing more integration testing than unit testing since I get more ROI that way for the moment, if I tried to DI every dependency of every class I suspect it would stop scaling eventually

my unit tests are mostly for the zero-dependency classes

gnat

2:22 PM

oh, and databases... First, you copy from tutorial SomeF#ckinFactory.getDatabase.query() and think you'll be fine. Next, you start wondering how your code will work if query returns 4... 400... 40,000 records? what if some (one, all) records are null, what if etc etc. At that moment, you either implement something high-brow to mock database in testing or simply change your class to get something like Callable<List<Object>> in constructor instead of that static call, and get happy

amon

I have meditated on the above Google Testing Blog article and have come to the conclusion that its author comes to the wrong conclusion. Both they and I agree that the lack of seams is problematic, but somehow the author uses this to argue that we can't test static methods since we can't re-wire its dependencies (???) and that even pure static functions like Math.abs() are problematic. I partially agree for Java < 8 since the lack of lambdas makes callback-based dependency management awkward.

However, it is my opinion that static methods are OK, while hardwired global implicit dependencies are not. A static method is perfectly testable if it has no hardwired dependencies. So while static methods can be tested, they make it more difficult to test their callers.

Ixrec

the specific arguments I'm seeing against statics do seem to be based on the assumption that all your units having loads of dependencies in need of mocking is the norm

e.g. I'd assume the getDatabase() call should only happen once at the top level, and that handle should get passed around, so you only have one db handle to mock out

amon

2:55 PM

@Ixrec passing dependencies as arguments is the simplest approach to dependency injection, and usually the best. I strongly advise to use it. It does have scaling problems for many dependencies, but those can be managed by grouping dependencies.

Unfortunately, many people will see getDatabase() and treat it as a service locator. If getDabase() allows us to swap out the instance, this is merely “meh” - we've made the dependency more implicit, but it's actually just a thinly veiled global variable.

Ixrec

by "treat it as a service locator", you mean people will call it from whereever and expect it to always return the same object, so the only way to test with other databases is to magically reimplement the getDatabase() function itself?

amon

yes, a service locator may be called from anywhere in order to get a hold on that service. No, the service should still be an interface so that we can provide different implementations. Otherwise, a change of the service would require changes all over the code.

Ixrec

I meant reimplement getDatabase() so it returns the mock implementation of IDBHandle

amon

If IDBHandle getDatabase() were a service locator, I would expect a setDatabase(IDBHandle) to provide the service, no reimplementing required.

Ixrec

but that's providing direct access to private member variables through a public method that exists only to facilitate testing! (yeah ok I'd do the same thing)

amon

3:06 PM

Otherwise, I'd have a static dependency on getDabase() which I'd have to somehow inject, which would be circular.

@Ixrec Testability and “good design” are always at odds, to a certain degree. Testability strongly favours decoupled, modular architectures, but those properties also make it difficult to verify correctness of the complete system. I think there's a middle ground where you get most of the advantages of both.

Ixrec

unit testing/TDD certainly does

I'm still trying to find that middle ground for our codebase, but obviously it's taking a long time since we started with basically no worthwhile tests except on our "util" module

amon

literally the same here.

enderland

this is interesting to me, since the project I'm tasked with is more comprehensive integration tests - where mocking out things is really not great at all

@Ixrec this is actually interesting with integration testing too, because even at an API level you have to consider that - anything we "need" for our tests is also public for other people who are not doing integration testing...

Duga

This is maybe more suited at programmers.SE, but not in its current form, and I'm sure it's been discussed there already. — CodeCaster 28 secs ago

Ixrec

3:21 PM

@enderland the direction we're currently heading in is integration tests of the entire client-side application, with mocks only on the external data service calls and the underlying UI components

PreferenceBean

bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35559439

the community whatsits will be so happy to have this to link to

enderland

I would be curious if that averages education/experience out of the equation

enderland

3:44 PM

@Ixrec that large code base question was pinged by duga. bah. we mustn't have gotten it

user15026

4:09 PM

@PreferenceBean "but only if their gender is not identifiable".

PreferenceBean

4:21 PM

@AshleyNunn yes that's what it says! well done ^_^

user15026

@PreferenceBean yay! my reading skills still work

user15026

I just find it amusing because I keep seeing this thing posted as yay girls but if you can only be perceived as better by pretending it's not you, then how much yay girls is it really

PreferenceBean

@AshleyNunn well it's a truckload of fuel for the fire of the feminist argument, for a start

there was also a similar drop for men

and the percentage difference was only 4% anyway

this doesn't seem all that scientific to me, tbqh

I like how the fourth/fifth paragraphs are: "The paper is awaiting peer review. This means the results have yet to be critically appraised by other experts."

still, I can imagine a ton of people jumping on this as some sort of evidence of rampant anti-woman discrimination and proof that "women are better"

amon

@PreferenceBean It is standard for science journalism in mainstream media to report a paper before it is published. The mark of a reputable venue is being up-front about this circumstance, rather than treating the findings as a certainty.

@PreferenceBean 4% can be huge, but that depends on the confidence intervals and the margin of error. 4±7 (at 95% confidence) is probably irrelevant, 4±2 (at 95% confidence) points to something real. Unfortunately, the article does not mention these.

PreferenceBean

@amon I said I like it

@amon Indeed

enderland

4:41 PM

@PreferenceBean it only is if experience is normalized out. If women making pull requests are on average 2x as experienced than men, should it be any surprise that they are contributing better code?

the key thing is that the difference in perception exists when gender is known

PreferenceBean

@enderland indeed

@enderland that right there is the fundamental problem with many of the conclusions drawn from observations like this

enderland

science/technology is a hostile place towards women, in general, for long term retention - so it seems likely that those women who stick around and make pull requests on github are probably on average much more experienced than men

PreferenceBean

you haven't started with a set of men and women of equal talent. but then, how can you? the whole point is observing talent differential

so really, at best, all you've proven is that there are more talented womenfolk contributing to github on day X than talented menfolk. and that doesn't seem like a particularly interesting observation to me. there was literally a 50% chance of it anyway.

@enderland that's reasonable

@enderland unfortunately the article doesn't mention the rate for men. it did say there was a rate drop there too. which I find baffling.

how could that possibly be causal

who rejects a pull request because a profile indicates gender (either way)???

more likely to be a correlation between crap code and people who advertise their gender rather than having online aliases etc??

enderland

it's also self-identified gender, too, which probably correlates to an increased self confidence of the women who are publicly identifying as women

PreferenceBean

see it's just way too complicated to make these dangerous claims

but then, in a gender obsessed world, everybody's craving for booleans so I'm not surprised

amon

4:48 PM

Maybe people reject PRs from people who appear human? You're a faceless, nameless robot? Looks fine. You're well-known in the community? Oh my gosh, thanks for contributing to my project. Your handle is your real name, or you have a profile picture? Eeh, humans are fallible, pass.

PreferenceBean

it's just a shame articles like this contribute to the problem rather than helping to fix it

@amon could be!

I'm really hungry

hey did I tell you I passed out on my sofa and only woke up like two hours ago

still feel horrible

enderland

> Assuming this final theory is the best one, why might it be that women are more competent,
on average? One explanation is survivorship bias: as women continue their formal and informal
education in computer science, the less competent ones may change fields or otherwise drop
out. Then, only more competent women remain by the time they begin to contribute to open
source. In contrast, less competent men may continue. While women do switch away from
STEM majors at a higher rate than men, they also have a lower drop out rate then men (22),

I kind of think that's the "answer" to this

PreferenceBean

partially

I think there's also an extension to that at play - I've never met a woman who went into programming for the heck of it without really caring. men do it all the time

gnat

Who cares... I just wanted an opinion on this. I will just have to find another place to post this. — HaX0r 52 secs ago

^^^ lovely

PreferenceBean

I imagine social pressures during youth are at play there

so it's still survivor bias but at a different point of life

@gnat He's being a lot politer than you were.

anyway, this is one of the reasons this "omg get more women in tech" craze pisses me off a little

it inevitably comes at the detriment of opportunities for the rest of us, is a fairly arbitrary goal (all "targets" suck for being inherently discriminatory either way) and it doesn't actually solve the problem it thinks its solving. the issue is just far more complex than hiring quotas can address

it'd have to be a societal change at the school layer. fortunately there are plenty of noble attempts at addressing that

ultimately though if a woman doesn't want to be an engineer then, well, she doesn't have to be

you can't force more people to be interested in it

I do think we can work on making the environment more hospitable towards the few that do choose to go into it

we don't really have a problem with that part over here (see: multi-faceted issue!!) but I know it's a big deal in some places. a customer from a certain country visited us for a while and brought a female engineer and the way the male managers talked to her was crazy

besides, if society isn't happy until there is a perfect 50% gender split in every single industry then we're going to be at this for a very long time

opportunity discrimination is one thing but ignoring the fact that gender differences, in the main, do exist is just stupid

enderland

5:00 PM

the problem is that both exist

PreferenceBean

as long as we cater to the outliers of predominant interests I'm fine with it

I think I'm just spewing out words at this point

need food

and a new brain

Ixrec

5:18 PM

in the past I agreed with the idea that all targets are inherently discriminatory (or they legitimize discrimination elsewhere), but merely saying that has offended people who then told me that being against targets for more Xs is also discriminatory toward Xs so now I just accept that I will never be allowed to have an opinion on any of this because I don't have the time or interest to get thoroughly informed and I have zero firsthand experience with real discrimination anyway

PreferenceBean

haha

:)

people will find a way to feel offended about just about anything

I learnt a long time ago not to care too much about that.

enderland

the fundamental assumption driving a lot of the "men/women % in everything needs to be the same" is that men/women are not at all different, and so any difference in behavior has purely sociological origins and no biological origins

Ixrec

it was someone I actually knew, but yeah, the main motivation is avoiding arguments about unsolvable problems

PreferenceBean

what's the best hangover takeaway?

Ixrec

@enderland devil's advocate: there's also a correlation between companies having more gender equality at all pay grades and the company itself performing better, so maybe there are people who want diversity because it supposedly implies a more innovative and creative corporation

PreferenceBean

5:26 PM

> I am supposed to create a first level decomposition for a given system with assigned responsibilities and interfaces. I must document and motivate the assumptions,alternatives and decisions.

dafuq

Ixrec

I went with "too broad"

enderland

@Ixrec I guess I'm referring to studies like the one @PreferenceBean linked

PreferenceBean

@Ixrec that clears my doubt

enderland

and also, interestingly the correlation between gender equality and company performance seems to suggest men/women are different in meaningful ways (whether societally conditioned or biologically is up for debate hah)

Ixrec

well, there's nothing to say about that one study because as you both pointed out it doesn't control for enough variables to prove anything

so I assumed we were talking about the general issue of trying to achieve perfect equality or whatever

PreferenceBean

5:28 PM

then there's that whole "it's your problem that I won't be at work for six months and you have to pay for it and not hire anyone to replace me either"

what happened to personal responsibility

everyone wants something for nothing

stupid species

Ixrec

are you talking about parental leave?

PreferenceBean

maybe

deliberately vague

cos I don't really want to get into a whole debate over it

but yeah

Ixrec

fair enough

I am of the opinion that parental leave should be equal for both genders (whatever number of months we set it at) but meh

enderland

my company now gives 2 full paid weeks to fathers too (which compared to you Europeans is peanuts but hey, it's nice for us here) :)

PreferenceBean

@Ixrec that'd do

I'd rather it weren't a company issue at all frankly

but I appreciate that one must legislate this stuff otherwise companies will just take the piss and people will go homeless

which takes me back to .. stupid species

Ixrec

5:31 PM

Iron law of wages

The iron law of wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker. The theory was first named by Ferdinand Lassalle in the mid-nineteenth century. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attribute the doctrine to Lassalle (notably in Marx's 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme), the idea to Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population, and the terminology to Goethe's "great, eternal iron laws" in Das Göttliche. == Lassalle == According to Alexander Gray, Ferdinand Lassalle "gets...

sadly, that didn't work

enderland

@Ixrec I think that question is a homework question, after trying to read it again

Ixrec

it's clearly not a well thought-out question

whether it's student homework or "workplace homework" (my boss told me to do X what did he mean?) or some other kind of weirdness isn't too important

PreferenceBean

^^

enderland

@Ixrec it gets complicated when you try to consider different levels of labor

Ixrec

the high-skilled labor definitely tends toward way above the minimum survivable wage

enderland

5:38 PM

Can you edit this with more information? I was trying to edit this myself to clarify what you were asking but am not entirely sure what your question is. Are you asking what design to use for those use cases? Or are you asking for what/how to document this? Or what structure to define the architecture using? — enderland 1 min ago

Ixrec

and we're back to that classic "most salvageable questions can only be salvaged by the OP" problem

enderland

yeah. I feel this OP might actually edit/come back though

Ixrec

I was about to say "can't hurt to try" but then actually it does occasionally, so good luck

PreferenceBean

Programmers.SE can only be salvaged by Programmers.SE but it's not happening

I think it's gonna have to be pizza isn't it

should I ask for garlic on it hmm

Ixrec

oh I missed a Supergirl episode, guess that's up next

PreferenceBean

5:43 PM

love that show ^_^

it's not perfect but I adore it

Ixrec

Cat Grant is hilarious

PreferenceBean

yeah she'd be great on SO

"sigh What fresh incompetence is this?"

Ixrec

the ad ratio on the CBS video player always feels strangely nostalgic, like I'm watching ordinary US TV again (all other videos I watch have no ads or way fewer ads)

user15026

@PreferenceBean If garlic is an option I vote yes

PreferenceBean

@AshleyNunn went for no

each extra topping is a quid anyway

and I didn't want to risk ruining the meal

Ixrec

5:48 PM

"Actually I'm in IT, so definitely not worth shooting" heh

user15026

Fair enough

user15026

I just like garlic on things.

PreferenceBean

me too - never knowingly tried it on pizza though

might next time

Ixrec

I've never seen it as an option

user15026

@PreferenceBean I've gotten roasted garlic on pizza, and just like sliced garlic, both have been tasty

Ixrec

5:49 PM

I think garlic for me has always been either totally unnoticable or mildly annoying

user15026

One place here does sliced garlic as a free option. :D

Ixrec

except garlic butter, there was one restaurant back in the US which had really good garlic butter for some reason

PreferenceBean

i put it on my steaks now

it all started when I first made the best roast potatoes ever

user15026

Garlic butter on meat is so tasty

PreferenceBean

and garlic was largely responsible

user15026

5:50 PM

Well, garlic butter on pretty much anything savoury is delicious

PreferenceBean

Hawaiian , 09"	6.80
+ Mushrooms	1.00
+ Green Peppers	1.00
+ Olives	1.00
+ Tomato base	0.00
Pepsi, 1.5L	2.00
Subtotal	11.80
Delivery fee	0.00
Card fee	0.50
Total	£12.30

lol

it's the drinks where they really get me

oh well

Ixrec

soda is worth it

though I order way more than 9" when I order pizza

PreferenceBean

"soda" heh

you guys are funny

@Ixrec I considered 12" but I didn't finish it last time and I'm still feeling a bit dodgy

got some quarter pounders in the freezer for later if needs be

user15026

I like leftover pizza :)

PreferenceBean

ewwww

fresh or fail

enderland

5:54 PM

I enjoy cold pizza

for leftovers, at least

not lukewarm, cold, very different..

Ixrec

we aren't consistent either

user15026

I'm curious about "other"

Ixrec

I think "fizz" is one of the others

probably "pepsi" too

PreferenceBean

fizzy/soft drink

@Ixrec that's an actual brand though

Ixrec

I prefer fresh pizza but since I am the exact opposite of a pizza snob the places I order from are also the kinds that taste almost as good reheated as they do originally

PreferenceBean

5:56 PM

@Ixrec haha ok

Ixrec

@PreferenceBean so is coke

user15026

@PreferenceBean so is coke, and people apparently say that :P

user15026

@Ixrec Fresh is best, but I am not opposed to next day pizza, or next-next-day pizza :P

PreferenceBean

@AshleyNunn r u srs?

weirdos

Ixrec

@PreferenceBean I just showed you the map of where people say "coke" =P

PreferenceBean

5:58 PM

so like you'd ask for a coke or a pepsi if you wanted lemonade???

you people are insane!

Ixrec

I'm pretty sure I've used "coke" as well as "soda"

but I prefer soda because that's not a brand name

PreferenceBean

that's awful

Ixrec

not lemonade no

PreferenceBean

just call it a drink

if you want lemonade ask for lemonade. if you want Coke ask for Coke. if you want Pepsi ask for Pepsi. if you want Fanta orange ask for Fanta orange....

Ixrec

we're talking soft drinks, carbonated beverages, coke/pepsi/dr pepper/etc

I don't know of anyone who'd refer to lemonade as coke/fizz/soda/pepsi

PreferenceBean

5:59 PM

lemonade is carbonated

well ok except "home-made lemonade" which tends to be lemon-flavoured water...

Ixrec

I've never had lemonade that was referred to as lemonade and carbonated at the same time

PreferenceBean

@Ixrec o.O

Ixrec

where are you from again?

PreferenceBean

> Cloudy lemonade, generally found in North America and India, is a traditionally homemade drink made with lemon juice, water, and sweetened with cane sugar or honey.[2] Found in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, clear lemonade is a lemon, or lemon-lime flavored, carbonated soft drink.

-.-

you people!

like lemon-flavoured Sprite would be lemonade

Ixrec

then again I'd never refer to an appletiser as soda either

so this is all moot

PreferenceBean

6:02 PM

mmmm Appletiser

Ixrec

I would definitely not refer to Sprite (of any flavor) as lemonade, though I do like Sprite, and Appletisers

PreferenceBean

nah normal Sprite isn't lemonade

it's just .... Sprite

was just trying to give an idea of what lemonade is

Ixrec

you're probably right, since now that I think about it I don't think I've actually come across anything in the UK referred to as lemonade

PreferenceBean

it's not really all that common

people tend to stick to their Sprites and their Fantas and their Cokes and their Pepsis

there's R. Whites and Schweppes though

and that one with the metal foil over the can lid mmmm

user15026

@PreferenceBean I don't, I call it pop

Ixrec

6:06 PM

"pop" is the weird one to me

PreferenceBean

@AshleyNunn pop exists here, or at least it did 50 years ago

Ixrec

that was something I only saw in TV shows set decades ago

PreferenceBean

the sort of thing your parents might say if they're from certain parts of the country

I guess our language evolves faster because there are fewer of us and spread over a smaller geographical area

Ixrec

the UK does have way more regional accents though, presumably because it was around way longer than the US

PreferenceBean

yeah dunno why it is

we have the highest dialect density in the world AFAIK

Ixrec

6:08 PM

I'll go with the British Empire thing

PreferenceBean

I don't think that has much to do with it now

Ixrec

not any more

PreferenceBean

could be a factor of the melting pot that is British culture since the early Roman invasions

but there's really no excuse for calling all fizzy drinks "coke" lol

Ixrec

Generic trademark

A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that has become the generic name for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, usually against the intentions of the trademark's holder. A trademark is said to become genericized when it began as a distinctive product identifier but has changed in meaning to become generic. This typically happens when the products or services with which the trademark is associated have acquired substantial market dominance or mind share, such that the primary meaning of the genericized...

we do that a lot

PreferenceBean

granted

I haven't done the hoovering today and I did promise myself I would

BUT a Hoover vacuum cleaner and some other kind of vacuum cleaner are both vacuum cleaners

Ixrec

6:15 PM

I'm probably never going to get in the habit of saying "plaster" and "ice lolly" instead of "band-aid" and "popsicle"

PreferenceBean

Coke and Fanta are completely different things

Ixrec

Fanta is orange soda, Coke is regular soda =)

PreferenceBean

what no

Ixrec

lol

PreferenceBean

"regular soda" would be like I dunno fizzy water

Coke is cola soda

Fanta is orange soda

Ixrec

6:16 PM

"cola soda"???

user15026

@Ixrec Fanta is orange or grape or cream soda, Coke is coke/pepsi/cola.

PreferenceBean

I think calling Tesco Value Cola Drink "Coke" is an example of generic trademarking

not convinced that can extend to other drinks that happen to be fizzy

at least, as with everything in this conversation, I mean it'd be weird for that to occur here

Ixrec

I probably should've said that coke/soda/pop normally only means "Coke or Pepsi" to me

user15026

@PreferenceBean I'd find people asking for a Coke and expecting not-cola to be odd. Like how do you indicate a flavour preference?

Ixrec

fizzy drinks that are clearly distinguishable from those two generally deserve their own name

no CBS I do not need ED medication

incidentally, Appletisers are one of the things I really wish the US had

we probably do somewhere but I never saw them the entire time I lived there

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