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Unread 15-12-2004, 00:45
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Tristan Lall Tristan Lall is offline
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FRC #0188 (Woburn Robotics)
 
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Re: YMTC: Redabot weighs 129.8?

Neither graciousness nor professionalism have anything to do with this problem--we can exemplify both to our hearts' content, but the fact is, there exist two reasonable interpretations of the rules, and the mere fact that one seems more altruistic doesn't excuse us from considering that the alternative is also a fair way of reading the rules. (Or maybe it isn't: that's the point we ought to be discussing.)

Steve you ask me to judge the intent of the rule. I seem to recall an issue a while back where we discussed the pros and cons of judging intent. Dave Lavery mentioned that "If you don't know the intent of the rule-writer, then all you have to go on is the words of the rule itself." While I wouldn't personally mind some consideration of intent, I don't feel that the rules and customs of FIRST allow us the luxury of doing that--largely because our judgments of intent are really just educated guesses of often-dubious validity.

Now, with regard to JVN's post, Dave has explained the intent of the rule-writers in a recent post--that was not known during the competition season, and could not be expected to have been known to any random team, unless it were officially announced. We can't argue with the benefit of that knowledge, since it was acquired ex post facto, and never officially disseminated. As we all know, Dave's answers on this forum can't be considered binding to FIRST teams at large, correct (or incorrect) as they might be. If we were to add the sum of our musings to the rules, the answer would be clear-cut, and in your favour--but we can't, because FIRST didn't.

I know why the rules were written--this was explained, and makes sense. I don't think that the rules were quite comprehensive enough to limit the scope of the robots in the manner intended.

And John, the sentence you quoted was directed at Jack, who seemed to be content with a post-and-run flame, rather than a statement of his reasoning.

Last edited by Tristan Lall : 15-12-2004 at 00:50.
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