Re: [PATCH] docs: submitting-patches - change non-ascii character to ascii

[Jonathan Corbet]

On Fri, 21 Jul 2017 13:47:15 -0700
Frank Rowand  wrote:

> Ascii is a lowest common denominator.  I can view and manipulate the file
> with any common text editor and common text utilities (eg, cat, grep, etc)
> on pretty much any Linux system that I walk up to.  I don't need to go
> to any effort to try to figure out what a non-ascii character is (which
> is exactly what prompted my patch -- I wanted to know what the character
> my patch modifies is).

It seems to me that we left the ASCII world behind some time ago; we need
to be able to deal with a wider character set in general, so we shouldn't
be afraid of using the expressive power it gives us.

That said, unless you're a typographical purist, it clearly doesn't
matter whether that file has a hyphen or an m-dash.  So «it bugs
Frank» is a good enough reason to apply the patch, and I'll do so.  I
may be more resistant in cases where it makes a difference, though.

Thanks,

jon
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Re: [PATCH] docs: submitting-patches - change non-ascii character to ascii

[Frank Rowand]

On 07/21/17 10:27, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Jul 2017 18:30:55 -0700
> frowand.l...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst contains a non-ascii
>> character.  Change it to the ascii equivalent.
> 
> You should know better than to tell somebody like me that a hyphen and an
> m-dash are equivalent! :)

OK, so they aren't totally equivalent, but close enough.  :)  Should I
have said analog instead of equivalent?  And would you prefer '--' to '-'?


> I don't have any real objection to this change, but I am curious: is the
> m-dash creating a problem somewhere?  We have plenty of non-ASCII
> characters in Documentation/ and beyond, why change this one?  Or to put
> it another way, do you think we should have an ASCII-only policy for
> documentation files?

Ascii is a lowest common denominator.  I can view and manipulate the file
with any common text editor and common text utilities (eg, cat, grep, etc)
on pretty much any Linux system that I walk up to.  I don't need to go
to any effort to try to figure out what a non-ascii character is (which
is exactly what prompted my patch -- I wanted to know what the character
my patch modifies is).

Yes, I can change my terminal emulator character encoding to UTF-8, and
change my LANG to en_US.UTF-8.  And now vi and cat show the correct
m-dash character.  But then how do I grep for m-dash in files?  Google
tells me I might be able to  +  + u hex_value_of_mdash
to enter an mdash, but I sure don't know what the hex value of mdash
is.  Plus I need to be observant enough to notice that the string I
am grepping for contains an m-dash instead of a dash.  And why should
I assume "en_US" as the prefix to my UTF-8 LANG?

To answer your second question, I would _prefer_ ASCII-only except for
cases where being limited to ASCII is restricting the ability to
convey information (properly).

I would reverse your question, and ask what is the added value of
non-ascii characters __in cases similar to this one__, that justifies
the negative impact?  (Please don't answer what the added value is
in cases that are not similar to this one.  I know the answer to that
question is different.)


> Thanks,
> 
> jon
> 

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Re: [PATCH] docs: submitting-patches - change non-ascii character to ascii

[Jonathan Corbet]

On Thu, 20 Jul 2017 18:30:55 -0700
frowand.l...@gmail.com wrote:

> Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst contains a non-ascii
> character.  Change it to the ascii equivalent.

You should know better than to tell somebody like me that a hyphen and an
m-dash are equivalent! :)

I don't have any real objection to this change, but I am curious: is the
m-dash creating a problem somewhere?  We have plenty of non-ASCII
characters in Documentation/ and beyond, why change this one?  Or to put
it another way, do you think we should have an ASCII-only policy for
documentation files?

Thanks,

jon
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[PATCH] docs: submitting-patches - change non-ascii character to ascii

[frowand . list]

From: Frank Rowand 

Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst contains a non-ascii
character.  Change it to the ascii equivalent.

Signed-off-by: Frank Rowand 
---
 Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst 
b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
index 3e10719fee35..733478ade91b 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
@@ -413,7 +413,7 @@ e-mail discussions.
 
 
 
-11) Sign your work — the Developer's Certificate of Origin
+11) Sign your work - the Developer's Certificate of Origin
 --
 
 To improve tracking of who did what, especially with patches that can
-- 
Frank Rowand 

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