Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 09:26:05 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Brian Feldman <green@FreeBSD.org> Cc: cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: style (was: cvs commit: src/bin/dd dd.1) Message-ID: <20000302092605.Q87829@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <200003010528.VAA26252@freefall.freebsd.org> References: <200003010528.VAA26252@freefall.freebsd.org>
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On Tuesday, 29 February 2000 at 21:28:46 -0800, Brian Feldman wrote: > green 2000/02/29 21:28:46 PST > > Modified files: > bin/dd dd.1 > Log: > After Bruce kindly explained the whole groff "sentence" idea to me, I've > put the whitespace in the right place. OK, I'll risk starting another flame war. Do we really need to revert to style guidelines that were probably outmoded 15 years ago? People were obviously actively leaving them already. As I understand it, the main objection to writing text "normally" is that it produces less repo bloat. Instead, the guidelines insist on a line break for every new sentence. This is just plain contrary to normal literary style. Like many aspects of style(9), it seems to have no better justification than "that's the way our grandfathers did it". This smacks of elitism or some such. I'm all for consistency, but does this consistency have to be of such a nature that it creates a style which is contrary to normal use? I've checked the repo bloat aspect; it's not always clear that this style does reduce bloat. Certainly it adds more lines. Consider the following rendition of this paragraph: OK, I'll risk starting another flame war. Do we really need to revert to style guidelines that were probably outmoded 15 years ago? People were obviously actively leaving them already. As I understand it, the main objection to writing text "normally" is that it produces less repo bloat. Instead, the guidelines insist on a line break for every new sentence. This is just plain contrary to normal literary style. Like many aspects of style(9), it seems to have no better justification than "that's the way our grandfathers did it". This smacks of elitism or some such. I'm all for consistency, but does this consistency have to be of such a nature that it creates a style which is contrary to normal use? I've checked the repo bloat aspect; it's not always clear that this style does reduce bloat. Certainly it adds more lines. Consider the following rendition of this paragraph: Does that really make sense? I think it's time to reconsider style and agree to change with the times. Greg -- Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
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