From owner-freebsd-current Mon Apr 13 19:03:07 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA18869 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Mon, 13 Apr 1998 19:03:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from mail.rwth-aachen.de (mail.RWTH-Aachen.DE [137.226.144.9]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA18856 for ; Tue, 14 Apr 1998 02:03:01 GMT (envelope-from heinig@hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de) Received: from HDZ-IMA.RWTH-Aachen.de (majestix.hdz-ima.RWTH-Aachen.DE) by mail.rwth-aachen.de (PMDF V5.1-10 #23726) with ESMTP id <01IVUAVNAPLE0004DE@mail.rwth-aachen.de> for current@freebsd.org; Tue, 14 Apr 1998 01:17:36 +0200 Received: from MAJESTIX/MAIL by HDZ-IMA.RWTH-Aachen.de (Mercury 1.20); Tue, 14 Apr 1998 00:17:47 +0000 Received: from MAIL by MAJESTIX (Mercury 1.20); Tue, 14 Apr 1998 00:17:37 +0000 Received: from hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de by HDZ-IMA.RWTH-Aachen.de (Mercury 1.20) with ESMTP; Tue, 14 Apr 1998 00:17:29 +0000 Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 01:17:09 +0200 From: Gerald Heinig Subject: Spelling etc. To: current@FreeBSD.ORG Message-id: <35329CF4.65DE8E18@hdz-ima.rwth-aachen.de> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2.5-RELEASE i386) Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hi guys, I always thought spelling was a non-issue for hackers. It seems I was wrong. It also seems to me to be an absolutely trivial problem of whether or not we authorise or authorize, since the meaning is quite clear. What an enormous number of people canīt seem to grasp is the difference between: The dog wagged its tail (*NOT* itīs tail!!!) and Itīs cold today (ie. It is cold today) Or stuff like: ....the variables are passed to the function and there values are changed. Does this mean: ...the variables are passed to the function and there, inside the function, *their* values are changed... or does it mean ...the variables are passed to the function, and inside the function some other, unconnected variables are changed... Iīve come across quite a few examples like those above and sometimes it really does change the meaning of the sentence. The only way to work out what the author meant is to write a test program to check. Apart from numerous occasions where misleading documentation has caused hours of pointless experimentation, making really *basic* spelling mistakes gives a product a very tacky feel. The idea is: if they canīt even get simple spelling right, whatīs their code going to look like? Keep up the good work Gerald To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message