Minor - Major
Like many bloggers, TBogg does a weekly random Top 10. A lot of people (regulars, mostly) post their own random ten in response. We all get to feel good about ourselves, because everybody else has lousy taste in music - or something.
Anyway, it looks like the majority of people who post their random 10 list them in "Song - Artist" order, instead of "Artist - Song" order. This annoys me (no big deal, I'm easily annoyed).
It simply feels wrong to put the more-specific (and presumably less well-known) part of the song information before the less-specific (and presumably more well-known). You can assume everyone has heard of The Beatles. And you can assume not everyone has heard of their song "Long Long Long".
Why does it matter? Well, for one thing, when I see a list of songs, I skim, looking for bands I like, dislike or merely recognize. If it's a band I dislike, I won't bother looking at the song title. Putting the band (the part of the info that people have a better chance of recognizing) first means people can evaluate the list, at least at one level, faster.
Secondly, in all the programming languages I can think of, when you're looking at an object, or a structure, or any heirarchical data, you start with the most-general part, then work down to specifics, in a left to right order: MyObject.SomethingInsideMyObject.SomethingInsideThatThing.TheGoodies. Or, even more familiar, filenames:
You'd never write:
Even if the syntax of that form was better, the idea of working from the inside out feels counter-intuitive.
And putting the song first feels counter-intuitive, too.
Yeah, this is stupid. I'm waiting for 5:00.
Anyway, it looks like the majority of people who post their random 10 list them in "Song - Artist" order, instead of "Artist - Song" order. This annoys me (no big deal, I'm easily annoyed).
It simply feels wrong to put the more-specific (and presumably less well-known) part of the song information before the less-specific (and presumably more well-known). You can assume everyone has heard of The Beatles. And you can assume not everyone has heard of their song "Long Long Long".
Why does it matter? Well, for one thing, when I see a list of songs, I skim, looking for bands I like, dislike or merely recognize. If it's a band I dislike, I won't bother looking at the song title. Putting the band (the part of the info that people have a better chance of recognizing) first means people can evaluate the list, at least at one level, faster.
Secondly, in all the programming languages I can think of, when you're looking at an object, or a structure, or any heirarchical data, you start with the most-general part, then work down to specifics, in a left to right order: MyObject.SomethingInsideMyObject.SomethingInsideThatThing.TheGoodies. Or, even more familiar, filenames:
- C:\temp\pictures\booty.jpg
You'd never write:
- booty.jpg/pictures/temp/C:
Even if the syntax of that form was better, the idea of working from the inside out feels counter-intuitive.
And putting the song first feels counter-intuitive, too.
Yeah, this is stupid. I'm waiting for 5:00.
posted by cleek at 4:48 PM
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