How so? It is clearly just a story of someone's experience, not a technical evaluation of various languages. The only other language (aside from Lua) mentioned is C, and the C implementation was considered so good that it was to be the direct model for the implementation in the story, so we can assume that writing a Lua interpreter in C also rocks.
> Otherwise it’s like saying “why orange cats are fluffy”
Sure. That seems like a reasonably fair title for a story about your fluffy orange cat, even if other cats (and other animals, not to mention other things that aren't animals) are also fluffy. You could call it "Fluffy" instead, I suppose, but then someone would complain about the lack of details. You can never please everyone.
But, regardless of how you want to interpret the title, it remains that there isn't a competition. There never has been, never will be. A poorly written title wouldn't magically create a competition. Where does the bizarre idea that there is one stemming from?
As far as I can tell, most people who find a band that "rocks" also enjoy other bands as well, often even more, and are not looking for some kind of a battle of the bands to find the one true band that they will only ever listen to again. It is quite possible, and typical, for (rock) music fans to enjoy many bands.
You are right that words mean only what the speaker/author intends for them to mean, but in common usage there is nothing to suggest that "rocks" implies something is better than something else. It only suggests something in the vein of "I enjoy this". Besides, we know what the author meant as he has told us.
Even we were to agree that the title is poorly written, we know from other context that there isn't a programming language competition. This single title wouldn't suddenly make us think that there is one. So where has the idea that there is one coming from?
False.
>> we know from other context that there isn't a programming language competition.
I would have expected at least one comparison to another programming language. Like "COBOL" was a real pain for this, but "Go rocks".
>> ... other stuff ...
Yeah, I don't really care one way or the other. If people want say that everything in space and time are completely undifferentiated and therefore "rock" equally, I don't really care. Rock on.
Nobody does. Why would they? It isn't like there is a competition or something.
> If people want say that everything in space and time are completely undifferentiated and therefore "rock" equally, I don't really care.
Many things having the potential to "rock" does not imply that everything "rocks" equally, or at all. I strongly suspect his attempt to write a Lua interpreter in Brainfuck would not "rock".
>> Many things having the potential to "rock" does not imply that everything "rocks" equally, or at all
That isn't what I am suggesting. I am saying that I do not care if people use the word "rocks" to describe an impossibly spherical marble rolling on an impossibly flat surface - equal across all space and time. Or, to describe, something that is uniquely better than all others. Use the term as you see fit. Use it to describe the value 4.532341 +/- 0.00001345 if you like.
Obviously. But you already suggested that in your first comment. For someone who claims to not care...