null wrote:
Paul B. Gallagher wrote:
The term "open source library for working with video on the web"
is being equated with the term "HTML video player." In the
simplest possible terms, such a "library" is also called a
"player."
Definition of "software library" from The Free Dictionary: "a
collection of standard routines used in computer programs, usually
stored as an executable file."
So the sentence really isn't ungrammatical or ambiguous. You just
have to know how to parse it.
Yes, as you say, in the "simplest possible terms", but sometimes
"simple" becomes "simplistic", and therefore less than clear. Saying
that you just have to know how to parse it is like saying that you
just have to understand written English! With the sort of stuff I'm
talking about in this thread, you shouldn't have to parse and
syntactically analyze, the meaning should be clear without having to
resort to re-reading, cogitation, etc. Don't want to make too much of
that one single sentence above, but I've gotta say that I've found
the web overflowing with masses of stuff about this or that aspect of
computer and web technology and new developments in these areas, and
that a huge proportion of it begs more questions than it answers
because it fails to comply with even the most basic principles of
technical or expository writing, or even with basic English grammar
and syntax. Given that much of it is there for the benefit of
non-techie, ordinary users rather than geeks, coders, developers, or
whatever who would know a lot more, this is very frustrating. ...
Yeah, well, two more points:
1) The vast majority of people on this forum are not professional
writers, so you have to adjust your expectations.
2) It's perfectly normal in any technical field to encounter specialized
jargon, and it would be unnatural and also difficult to follow if
posters avoided that jargon.
My remark about parsing referred at least in part to the fact that
understanding the words is key to understanding the syntax. Compare this
famous sentence that computers cannot understand:
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
It's the computer's inability to recognize "flies" and "like" in the
second clause as a noun and a verb, respectively, that prevents it from
correctly parsing that clause.
So that's why I tried to clarify by explaining "library."
--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
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