On 21/02/09 at 12:51 +0000, Justin B Rye wrote: > Package: developers-reference > Version: 3.4.1 > Severity: normal > Tags: patch > > This report has been brewing on debian-l10n-english for years - see > "http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-english/2008/08/msg00004.html"; > > The advice in DevRef 6.2.2 about package short descriptions is good, > but it's undermined by the fact that the rationale given is hogwash. > For a start: > > # An appositive clause is defined in WordNet as a grammatical > # relation between a word and a noun phrase > > Alas, valid package synopses are _not_ appositive clauses (indeed, > they're neither appositive nor clauses); clauses are not grammatical > relations; and what's more, WordNet has no such entry. > > Now, the use of this kind of pseudoscientific gobbledygook in > justification for a rule may offend me as a linguistics graduate, > but that doesn't mean I want to see it replaced with an accurate > version. Even if every word of it was true, it would still be a bad > idea to base policy guidelines on a set of formal syntactic > principles, since most Debian package maintainers have had no > particular training in English syntactic analysis. > > Besides, the grammatical rules clearly aren't the real reason for > the rule. If we're going to justify our advice, we should explain > it in terms of the real benefits it brings, such as that > standardising makes it easier for users to browse through a list of > short descriptions. > > My patch concentrates on providing templates that developers can fit > their proposed synopses into. If you're interested in thrashing out > details of the wording, now would be a good time to bring it back to > [email protected], since there are more posters > around than usual.
Hi Justin, I've just applied your patch. Thank you. -- | Lucas Nussbaum | [email protected] http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/ | | jabber: [email protected] GPG: 1024D/023B3F4F | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
