The use of The use of this option is evil is evil

[amonakov]

As far as I see, it is neither funny nor helpful, and it gives no actionable feedback to the reporter.

I am referring to instances where a response to a new issue is that quote from the documentation and little else (#761, #872).

I don't see what the reporter is supposed to think upon receiving such response from a maintainer.

[samcarter]

The reason why I quoted the beamer documentation is to convey that beamer itself discourages users from using this option. It is there for very niche use cases, such as automatically created bibliographies, but in turn the user has to take the risk that not all beamer features might work with this option.

[josephwright]

@amonakov I'm not sure what we can say beyond what Till originally put in the manual: this option really is for extremis only, and we can't say much more than 'probably don't use it'.

[amonakov]

The problem I'm trying to draw the attention to is that, in the context of Github issue tracker, offering that quote bare without any further elaboration is not productive. And with elaboration the quote becomes unnecessary.

Assume I read the documentation and I know where the quote comes from.

How am I supposed to deduce your attitude to the issue from that? Are you interested in solving the problem? Will you help fix it? Will you help review a PR? Will you reject the PR attempting to solve the issue on the basis of the option being "evil"? None of those questions are answered by that quote.

[josephwright]

The problem I'm trying to draw the attention to is that, in the context of Github issue tracker, offering that quote bare without any further elaboration is not productive. And with elaboration the quote becomes unnecessary.

Assume I read the documentation and I know where the quote comes from.

If we do, you know that hic sunt leones applies: using the option is not recommended and so anything that works is a bonus.

How am I supposed to deduce your attitude to the issue from that? Are you interested in solving the problem? Will you help fix it? Will you help review a PR? Will you reject the PR attempting to solve the issue on the basis of the option being "evil"? None of those questions are answered by that quote.

I guess there's a difference in outlook here: my reading of the previous issues is that the point was to address the fact that most users likely don't read the docs, so pointing out that the option is explicitly listed as evil is a reasonable response.

If you want something more 'formal', then. It is very unlikely that the current maintainers will look at addressing any issues with the breakframes option beyond those that apply to the very limited use cases that are potentially required (mainly foucssd on automatically-generated bibliographies). That said, PRs which seems 'safe' are in general accepted and so if others wish to work on this, it is probable that code would be accepted.

[amonakov]

Quoting "This option is evil" is giving feedback on the use of Beamer (which is more appropriate to discuss on StackOverflow-like sites), not on a specific issue in Beamer that the reporter identified and distilled to a minimal testcase.