On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 06:25:20PM +0200, Emile van Bergen wrote: > On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 10:54:11AM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 05:39:40PM +0200, Sam Hocevar wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jun 18, 2003, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > > > Ugh. Since when does the developer's reference recommend this? The
> > > > article most definitely belongs...
> > > It is in 6.2.2:
> > >
> > > Since the synopsis is a clause, rather than a
> > > full sentence, we recommend that it neither start with a capital nor
> > > end with a full stop (period). It should also not begin with an
> > > article, either definite ("the") or indefinite ("a" or "an").
> > >
> > > It might help to imagine that the synopsis is combined with the
> > > package name in the following way:
> >
> > > <package-name> is a <synopsis>.
> > Grammatically, the article is part of the clause. This recommendation
> > is inconsistent.
> "Since the synopsis is part of a clause..." would probably be better,
> sure.
That would make the recommendation almost entirely meaningless. Nearly
all incorrect short descriptions are parts of a clause of one sort or
another.
> Also, "<package name> contains <synopsis>" could be suggested as a
> template, see descriptions such as "header files for package xyz" or
> "ABC support files", "development files", "KDE core applications", etc.
Precisely. Such a template requires that the provided synopsis be a
noun clause. If descriptions are all to be kept on equal footing
grammatically (which makes for greatest comprehensibility), then both
"<package-name> is <synopsis>." and "<package-name> contains <synopsis>."
should require complete noun phrases/clauses for the short desc.
> But in any case, no article seems to be the norm:
> $ grep '^Description:' /var/lib/dpkg/available | wc -l
> 9025
> $ grep '^Description: [Aa][n ]' /var/lib/dpkg/available | wc -l
> 1163
> at least on woody, with just a few small extra repositories.
Not all short descriptions would be grammatically correct with a leading
indefinite article; which is why, where it's appropriate, it should be
explicit.
> The lowercase recommendation seems much less followed:
> $ grep '^Description: [A-Z]' /var/lib/dpkg/available | wc -l
> 7661
> $ grep '^Description: [a-z]' /var/lib/dpkg/available | wc -l
> 1262
Unfortunate, since /that/ recommendation is sound :)
--
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
pgp2Lthzz8mnx.pgp
Description: PGP signature
