Ken Fox wrote:
>
> "David L. Nicol" wrote:
> > Hey, none of those are better than "It would be nice"
> >
> > They're all reasons why it would be nice
>
> I'm a little hazy on what you think is a "better" reason if all
> of mine were variants of "it would be nice."
> ...
> i.e. It would be nice. ;)
>
> - Ken
yes, yes, yes, I guess I had a little too much English Department
coffee when I sent that; I was trying to suggest an absoultely
minor incremental edit (and I feel positively silly spending all
this effort on it even moreso now ...) that instead of
"These are better than <<it would be nice>>:"
you might have written
"It would certainly be nice! Here are some supporting reasons:"
NEW MATERIAL:
I think this issue is an instance of a fundamental difference between
e-mails and verbal discussions, which is that in verbal discussions there
are other cues -- this is a well-discussed issue --
but on perl6 discussions, I see a lot of people saying
No, not A, but rather A
when A and A are the same thing.
This can be exceedingly frustrating for the person who reads the first
half, thinks that their idea is about to be criticized, gets to the second
half, finds it has merely been paraphrased, and wracks their brain
trying to identify a difference.
The problem is, there is no way to differentiate between the "no, not..."
construction that indicates rethinking from the one that indicates rephrasing,
in e-mail.
My proposal is that we as a group take pains to eschew using negatives to
introduce paraphrase. Plenty of positive constructions exist, for instance
Yes, you mean ...
Or one could say ...
AND, we reserve negative constructions for differences in substance rather than
differences in phrasing:
CORRECTLY STATED DIFFERENCE IN OPINION:
F:> I think we should use stream-based foofinofrals.
G:> my model indicates streams are inefficient for foofinofrals, we
would be better using amorphous nodes.
INCORRECTLY STATED DIFFERENCE IN PHRASING:
F:> I think we should use stream-based foofinofrals.
G:> No, rather, we should use foofinofrals which are based on streams.
CORRECTLY STATED DIFFERENCE IN PHRASING:
F:> I think we should use stream-based foofinofrals.
G:> I agree, let's use foofinofrals which are based on streams.
--
David Nicol 816.235.1187 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
