Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 22:51:02 -0700 From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@freebsd.org> To: Benjamin Kaduk <kaduk@MIT.EDU> Cc: dfr@freebsd.org, src-committers@freebsd.org, svn-src-all@freebsd.org, Ben Kaduk <minimarmot@gmail.com>, Zachary Loafman <zml@freebsd.org>, svn-src-head@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Review: fail(9) style/grammar (was Re: svn commit: r192908 ...) Message-ID: <4A1E2646.6040807@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <alpine.GSO.1.10.0905280048460.17043@multics.mit.edu> References: <200905271636.n4RGasNe003922@svn.freebsd.org> <47d0403c0905271005t7f57f9b9h3d0721bbb1fbedc2@mail.gmail.com> <20090528014726.GG3704@isilon.com> <alpine.GSO.1.10.0905280048460.17043@multics.mit.edu>
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Benjamin Kaduk wrote: > ... I think that the new > sentence-->new line may also relate to having two spaces > between sentences -- I think that (e.g.) "e.g." should be okay. It's mostly about keeping diffs easy to read. Changes that add, remove, or edit a single sentence are pretty common. If every sentence starts on a new line, then such changes only affect a couple of lines. Nroff will wrap paragraphs for you, so this doesn't affect the formatted output. The alternative is usually to word-wrap blocks of text in your editor. In that case, editing even one word (and then re-wrapping) can affect the rest of the paragraph. This causes many-line diffs that are a lot harder to read. So the rule is "every sentence starts on a new line". In particular, "e.g.," and "i.e." never start or end a sentence, so they're unaffected by this rule. However, I personally try to avoid Latin abbreviations such as "e.g." and "i.e." in my own writing. I strongly prefer "for example" to "e.g.". For "i.e.", I generally find that it can be replaced with a sentence break, semicolon, or even a comma splice. Opinions differ, of course. Tim
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