On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 4:18 AM, Heikki Linnakangas <[email protected]> wrote: > On 30.03.2011 11:08, Susanne Ebrecht wrote: >> >> Hello, >> >> during translation the history.sgml - I found the following sentences in >> >> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/history.html >> >> "The design of the rule system at that time was described in /The design >> of the POSTGRES rules system/ >> <http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/biblio.html#STON87A>. The >> rationale and architecture of the storage manager were detailed in /The >> design of the POSTGRES storage system >> <http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/ERL-M87-06.pdf>/" >> >> I am not sure if the grammar is correct here. >> >> My feeling says it should be: >> >> "is decribed" and "are detailed" instead of "was and were" >> >> I am pretty sure these books still exist. > > Both would be correct, but with a slightly different meaning. What it means > now is that someone wrote a description of (= described) the design in that > book. If you change it to "is described", it means that there is a > description on the (old) design, with nothing said about when the > description was written.
I think this is a correct analysis of grammar - both are correct, with slightly different meanings. I actually find both phrasings a bit awkward, though. What we're really trying to do here is provide the links, but that is sometimes better done in a footnote or bibliography than in the middle of a body of text. -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company -- Sent via pgsql-docs mailing list ([email protected]) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-docs
