Bug#139957: period at the end of short description?
Hmm. I seem to be a minority of one when it comes to thinking that some latitude could be left to developer in deciding about periods in short descriptions. But loot at the people for the idea of greater control: the luminaries list: Josip Rodin, Joey Hess, Colin Walters, Anthony Towns, Branden Robinson. Who am I, then, to stand in the way of greater control? I hereby withdraw the formal objection, though I am still opposed to adding what I consider to be unnecesary implemetation details to policy. manoj -- If you weren't my teacher, I'd think you just deleted all my files. an anonymous UCB CS student, to an instructor who had typed rm -i * to get rid of a file named -f on a Unix system. Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#139957: period at the end of short description?
On Wed, 2002-03-27 at 21:19, Joey Hess wrote: I think the main case would be a short description where someone has managed to cram two complete sentences in. No I cannot think of one offhand. Do we really want to allow people to do such things? Here is my annotated grep: [EMAIL PROTECTED] egrep '^Description.+\. .+\.' /var/lib/dpkg/available Description: mysql database common files (e.g. /etc/mysql/my.cnf) False positive. Description: The GNU wdiff utility. Compares two files word by word. This package already violates policy because it has its name in the synopsis line. I would instead write: The GNU utility for comparing two files word by word Description: XForms mail user agent. Is transitioning into Archimedes currently. An XForms-based mail user agent, soon to be named Archimedes Description: ad! BBS. A perl based bbs or easy menu system. Again, just remove the name (and the trailing period). Description: Chess In Lisp. A library for cmucl. A Lisp chess library for cmucl Description: Spanish fortune cookies. Offensive section. Spanish fortune cookies (offensive) Description: The perl data language. Perl extensions for numerics. Perl extensions for numeric calculation Description: Sound module editor/player. Supports .xm modules, .xi instruments. Sound module editor/player which supports .xm modules and .xi instruments Description: Perl interface to the uulib library (a.k.a. uudeview/uuenview). False positive. Description: /bin/login replacement with RADIUS. Header file and link lib. What to do about library packages is still somewhat up in the air, I think. I personally like the approach of adding a parenthetical. /bin/login replacement with RADIUS authentication (development files) Description: Control ieee1394 audio/video devices. (Development files.) Control ieee1394 audio/video devices (development files) Description: Transitional package. Can be removed. A transitional package, which can be safely removed Description: Command line image gallery generator. It also makes thumbnails. Command line image gallery generator; can also make thumbnails Description: Maps for the crossfire game. Needed only with the server. Maps for the crossfire game; needed for the server only Or just drop the needed for the server only part; this is something that should really be part of the long description. Description: /bin/login replacement with RADIUS. Shared lib to used by programs. /bin/login replacement with RADIUS authentication (shared library) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#139957: period at the end of short description?
On Thu, Mar 28, 2002 at 12:06:40AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: I seem to be a minority of one when it comes to thinking that some latitude could be left to developer in deciding about periods in short descriptions. Personally, I don't see putting stuff in policy as removing lattitude. See also http://bugs.debian.org/102213 . I hereby withdraw the formal objection, though I am still opposed to adding what I consider to be unnecesary implemetation details to policy. Good advice on packaging issues is always helpful, and afaict, policy is the best place for it. The developers-reference subject matter is broader Debian issues beyond package contents (eg, mailing lists, how to upload, when to NMU, etc); the packaging-manual used to be detailed low-level documentation on what will be accepted by dpkg, rather than Debian. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``Debian: giving you the power to shoot yourself in each toe individually.'' -- with kudos to Greg Lehey pgpZAoEeAx5rg.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#139957: period at the end of short description?
On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 10:51:24PM -0500, Colin Walters wrote: Branden, do you have an argument for why capitalization should be discouraged? We went over this in the list archives the last time the issue came up and Manoj planted his feet. My reasons are two: 1) I think it's bad style to capitalize something that isn't a title or a sentence. 2) It's possible to give the ucfirst and period at end crowd what they want via a package browsing interface. You just manipulate the package description string that you are given. The reverse transformation is not reliably possible. Consider the following hypothetical package description: Description: GNOME-based game; you're an ambulance driver and you've got to keep your patients from arriving at the hospital D.O.A. Now, needless to say, the above example is way too long, but you get the idea. Would you want this to end up as: Description: gNOME-based game; you're an ambulance driver and you've got to keep your patients from arriving at the hospital D.O.A? The leading mandatory capital letter and trailing period are noise, not signal. Thus, they should be added where noise isn't a problem. -- G. Branden Robinson| Communism is just one step on the Debian GNU/Linux | long road from capitalism to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | capitalism. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Russian saying pgpgPZ6jnDmBb.pgp Description: PGP signature
