Re: =Iff(([Me]![Gender])="M","Male","Female")

"Larry Linson" <bouncer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
rJptf.1944$aB1.729@trnddc02:">news:rJptf.1944$aB1.729@trnddc02:

> "David W. Fenton" <XXXusenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
>
> >> ;"Male";"Female"
> >> assuming Male is the checked value.
> >
> > Why not checked = Female?
>
> If I understood correctly, he was explaining why he used the
> particular format. If so, the answer to your question would be:
> Because that Format doesn't work if "checked = Female"; it would
> be ;"Female";"Male".

???

The issue was about using a Boolean to represent the two values,
male or female. The suggestion was that TRUE would indicate
maleness. My question is only over why male was chosen as TRUE and
female as FALSE.

I don't want to sound politically correct or anything, but it's
exactly the kind of thing that I find annoying, because of the
assumption that the male case should be the TRUE one.

In any event, I believe that it's *not* a Boolean value, so it
oughtn't be stored in a Boolean field.

> > I would never represent something that is neutral by using a
> > Boolean.
>
> What's neutral in this case?

Sex. Male is neither better nor worse than female. Maleness is not a
negation of femaleness.

> > Second, in cases where the value is unknown, there is no way to
> > store that using a Boolean field.
>
> Unknown, I can understand; neutral, I can't, without explanation.

There's an unintended implied value judgement in making one of them
TRUE and one FALSE, seems to me, and it would be better to avoid
such assumptions.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/
.

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