[Yes, my reply is sort of off topic] On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 06:02:06PM -0700, Xiong Changnian wrote: > On Wed, 2010-08-25 at 01:13 +0200, nadim khemir wrote:
> You may find the register in which I write overly formal. I don't wish > to insult anyone who may be more comfortable writing in another style. I > struggle to write clearly and accurately. I'm aware that my words here > are immutable and I cannot suffer poor grammar to represent myself. > > > > Come with reasonable mails or expect someone to tell you to bugger off! > > I have spent nearly two hours on this message, ruthlessly extracting > every word that does not pay its freight. The result may not be > reasonable. But I cannot afford more time; nor would I risk less. I appreciate your efforts in editing down your messages. "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." Blaise Pascal being quite appropriate. It would be nice if more people writing e-mail did this. Assuming that the saved collective time of the readers is much greater than the time taken to make a message shorter, then it's the right thing to do. But your style of writing, whilst grammatically flawless, is curious, and unlike most anyone else writing technical e-mail. Your description is "formal" - I'd not agree. It's more "flowery" - elaborate, rather than etiquette laden. And this stands out more than the message content, which is unfortunate. As to your original name suggestion - no, I don't have a good idea. But I'm also not sure if your proposal would work that efficiently at an implementation level. Assuming you don't have code yet to implement it, try writing a prototype locally, and seeing if that gives you ideas on what sort of name it should be. You *can* easily change the name of something before it is published, and others start using it. [and I note that in reply I've made at least 3 style errors, starting sentences with conjunctions. I guess I'm structuring my e-mail more like speech than formal writing.] Nicholas Clark
