Re: document bugs
Daniel Goldman <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.gnu.m4.bugs |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
I think the poster is trying to improve the documentation. That is good. As Eric said, it could only be evaluated with a specific patch. To my understanding, the post suggests replacing "while" with "wereas" somewhere. But "wereas" is not a word, nor (usually) a while synonym. :( It seems that "despite of" or "in contrast of" are also suggested as alternatives to "while". However, "despite of" and "in contrast of" are *not* grammatically correct English. :( Nor are they anything close to a synonym for "while" or "until". Take the sentence "While I was studying the m4 while command, my brain exploded." :) It would be difficult to replace "while" with a good equivalent. "As I was studying the m4 while command, my brain exploded" is close. The literal would be "During the time I was studying the m4 while command, my brain exploded." Or take "Until I studied the m4 until command, I was sane". :) The only alternative seems "Before the time I studied the m4 until command, I was sane". IMO, the downside of the poster's good idea outweigh the upsides. PS - The suggestion to expunge "while" and "until" from m4 docs (other than as a command) reminds me a bit of some "constrained" novels. In one example, "Gadsby" (not "The Great Gatsby"), no words containing the letter "e" were used. :) Pretty challenging! In another example, "Eunoia", each chapter only contains words with a single vowel. So there might be a sentence like "Hassan can, at a handclap, call a vassal at hand and ask that all staff plan a bacchanal". :) Daniel On 2/27/2019 7:09 AM, Eric Blake wrote: > [I'm not sure why the original mail didn't seem to hit the list] > > On 2/26/19 1:34 PM, HaimMelamed wrote: >> hello, >> after reading, maybe its better to change words like "while" with "wereas" >> or "despite of" or "in contrast of" ...... >> because the confusion of known operational commands like "ifelse" or >> "forloop" or "while" or "until". >> best regards >> > > Rather than a vague suggestion, it's easier to evaluate this if you can > propose an actual patch (showing both the before and after of a sentence > you find confusing without your rewording). > > "despite of" and "in contrast of" are not idiomatic English; while I > don't mind helping you come up with grammar that matches a native > speaker's expectations, it's hard to do that without having an actual > sentence being changed, rather than just a couple of words from an > unspecified sentence. >