* [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages ¿why?
@ 2004-05-20 14:59 Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 15:22 ` Rob Pike
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Alberto Cortes @ 2004-05-20 14:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
English uses first capital letter at after a ".".
This convention has been used for manual pages, so when i open
strcat(2) in and acme window and right click on strdup to look for an
explanation of that function it does not find it. Thats because the
paragraph where it is explained starts by "Strdup bla bla...".
¿What are the benefits of keeping that convention for function names?.
--
url: http://montoya.aig.uc3m.es/~acortes/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages ¿why?
2004-05-20 14:59 [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages ¿why? Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-20 15:22 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-20 15:53 ` [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why? Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 9:01 ` [9fans] first capital letter i Douglas A. Gwyn
2004-05-20 16:57 ` [9fans] first capital letter infunction names at man pages ¿why? matt lawless
2004-05-20 17:58 ` boyd, rounin
2 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2004-05-20 15:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Alberto Cortes, Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Let me put it to you this way: the first letter of a sentence
is capitalized. As Doug said when we talked about this,
'the' isn't capitalized either, but we capitalize it at the
beginning of a sentence to aid the reader.
If you dislike the convention, avoid putting functions at
the beginning of a sentence.
-rob
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 15:22 ` Rob Pike
@ 2004-05-20 15:53 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 16:44 ` Russ Cox
2004-05-20 17:02 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-21 9:01 ` [9fans] first capital letter i Douglas A. Gwyn
1 sibling, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Alberto Cortes @ 2004-05-20 15:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
On Thu, 20 May 2004 08:22:07 +0000, Rob Pike wrote:
> Let me put it to you this way: the first letter of a sentence
> is capitalized. As Doug said when we talked about this,
> 'the' isn't capitalized either, but we capitalize it at the
> beginning of a sentence to aid the reader.
I think the real way to help the reader is "to capitalize the letter at
the beginning of a sentence" and "to avoid beginning sentences with
function names". What really hit me is why some man pages do only
half the work.
I had googled for these, but i din't get anything, was your talk with
Doug on 9fans? if it is so, sorry for waking up a dead topic. any
keyword to help on my search?
--
url: http://montoya.aig.uc3m.es/~acortes/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 15:53 ` [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why? Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-20 16:44 ` Russ Cox
2004-05-20 17:20 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 17:02 ` Rob Pike
1 sibling, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Russ Cox @ 2004-05-20 16:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Alberto Cortes, Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> I think the real way to help the reader is "to capitalize the letter at
> the beginning of a sentence" and "to avoid beginning sentences with
> function names". What really hit me is why some man pages do only
> half the work.
It's unnecessarily verbose to write "The function strdup does foo."
instead of "Strdup does foo." everywhere.
The real problem is the impedance mismatch between
the relative case-insensitivity of English convention and the
case-sensitivity of most Unix tools. It occurs when editing
any English text (or text in most other western languages),
not just man pages. Patching the man pages is a kludge.
Russ
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 16:44 ` Russ Cox
@ 2004-05-20 17:20 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 17:31 ` rog
2004-05-20 18:07 ` boyd, rounin
0 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Alberto Cortes @ 2004-05-20 17:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Thu, 20 May 2004 12:44:56 +0000, Russ Cox wrote:
> The real problem is the impedance mismatch between
> the relative case-insensitivity of English convention and the
> case-sensitivity of most Unix tools. It occurs when editing
> any English text (or text in most other western languages),
> not just man pages. Patching the man pages is a kludge.
I see the problem, i will give a try on these "meaning-searching"
instead of the traditional "patron-searching". i will modify the Look
command to be case-insensitive on the first letter of the word, and
use it just for fun during a test period. Maybe it will be good to
make other changes too, not just the capital first letter, but
searching for meanings is hard to implement properly.
I hate when i hit these computer-are-no-good-for-that problems.
--
url: http://montoya.aig.uc3m.es/~acortes/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 17:20 ` Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-20 17:31 ` rog
2004-05-20 17:43 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 20:43 ` vdharani
2004-05-20 18:07 ` boyd, rounin
1 sibling, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: rog @ 2004-05-20 17:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: alcortes, 9fans
> i will modify the Look command to be case-insensitive on the first
> letter of the word, and use it just for fun during a test period.
while you're about it, i've thought for a while it'd be nice to have a
"Lookw" command to look for whole words only, so I can easily search
for single-letter variable names in my programs...
the only current alternative as far as i can see is something like:
:/(^|[^\\0-9a-zA-Z_])e($|[^0-9a-zA-Z_])
to search for "e", which is a bit like hard work.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 17:31 ` rog
@ 2004-05-20 17:43 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 17:50 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
` (2 more replies)
2004-05-20 20:43 ` vdharani
1 sibling, 3 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Alberto Cortes @ 2004-05-20 17:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Thu, 20 May 2004 18:31:36 +0000, rog@vitanuova.com wrote:
> while you're about it, i've thought for a while it'd be nice to have a
> "Lookw" command to look for whole words only, so I can easily search
> for single-letter variable names in my programs...
That would be nice, sure i can make a new command for "meaning-search"
too, but i am more interested in how to integrate it with the "right button
click" interface.
Maybe:
1 right button click: meaning-search
2 quick right button clicks: Look
3 very quick right button clicks: Lookw
it is homogeneous, you express your required precision, with the
harsh you show on the care of the mouse, quite human thinking.
--
url: http://montoya.aig.uc3m.es/~acortes/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 17:43 ` Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-20 17:50 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-21 17:20 ` Joel Salomon
2004-05-20 17:53 ` rog
2004-05-21 10:28 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Fco.J.Ballesteros @ 2004-05-20 17:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: alcortes, 9fans
> 1 right button click: meaning-search
> 2 quick right button clicks: Look
> 3 very quick right button clicks: Lookw
>
> it is homogeneous, you express your required precision, with the
> harsh you show on the care of the mouse, quite human thinking.
That would stress me a lot. Let's don't overload things a lot.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 17:43 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 17:50 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
@ 2004-05-20 17:53 ` rog
2004-05-20 17:54 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 10:28 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: rog @ 2004-05-20 17:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: alcortes, 9fans
> 1 right button click: meaning-search
> 2 quick right button clicks: Look
> 3 very quick right button clicks: Lookw
time delays are not the way forward. they mean you can't get faster
as you get more familiar with the interface.
i wouldn't change the meaning of a right-button click - it's
already overloaded enough. just a new verb would be fine.
that way it's only there if you want it there.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 17:53 ` rog
@ 2004-05-20 17:54 ` Alberto Cortes
0 siblings, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Alberto Cortes @ 2004-05-20 17:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Thu, 20 May 2004 18:53:01 +0000, rog@vitanuova.com wrote:
> time delays are not the way forward. they mean you can't get faster
> as you get more familiar with the interface.
>
> i wouldn't change the meaning of a right-button click - it's
> already overloaded enough. just a new verb would be fine.
>
> that way it's only there if you want it there.
Of course after the initial command is launch, only 1 click will be
necessary to repeat that command. Anyway, i get your point, i will
think about it, thanks for your comments.
--
url: http://montoya.aig.uc3m.es/~acortes/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 17:43 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 17:50 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-20 17:53 ` rog
@ 2004-05-21 10:28 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 10:29 ` Dave Lukes
2004-05-21 10:57 ` Alberto Cortes
2 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz @ 2004-05-21 10:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: alcortes, 9fans
> That would be nice, sure i can make a new command for "meaning-search"
> too, but i am more interested in how to integrate it with the "right button
> click" interface.
>
> Maybe:
>
> 1 right button click: meaning-search
> 2 quick right button clicks: Look
> 3 very quick right button clicks: Lookw
>
> it is homogeneous, you express your required precision, with the
> harsh you show on the care of the mouse, quite human thinking.
Hmmm. If the problem is the first capital letter select all the word except the first letter.
It works, is fast and doesn't require a change of the interface.
G.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 10:28 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
@ 2004-05-21 10:29 ` Dave Lukes
2004-05-21 10:57 ` Alberto Cortes
1 sibling, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Dave Lukes @ 2004-05-21 10:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz wrote:
> Hmmm. If the problem is the first capital letter select all the word except the first letter.
> It works, is fast and doesn't require a change of the interface.
Too easy.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 10:28 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 10:29 ` Dave Lukes
@ 2004-05-21 10:57 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 11:04 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
1 sibling, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Alberto Cortes @ 2004-05-21 10:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Fri, 21 May 2004 12:28:43 +0000, Gorka Guardiola Muzquíz wrote:
> Hmmm. If the problem is the first capital letter select all the word
> except the first letter.
> It works, is fast and doesn't require a change of the interface.
Matt already suggest this, but it is not so easy, think of
hyphenation, for example, we are talking about functional semantic
searches.
--
url: http://montoya.aig.uc3m.es/~acortes/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 10:57 ` Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-21 11:04 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 12:23 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 14:22 ` boyd, rounin
0 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz @ 2004-05-21 11:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: alcortes, 9fans
> On Fri, 21 May 2004 12:28:43 +0000, Gorka Guardiola MuzquÂz wrote:
>
> Matt already suggest this, but it is not so easy, think of
> hyphenation, for example, we are talking about functional semantic
> searches.
>
For me it works. I don't think functions are hyphenated. If they are
that is a bug, I think that, in English, proper nouns should not be
hyphenated. In any case, if you use troff or latex, words get
hyphenated before printing, so it shouldn't be a problem. I don't
understand what functional semantic searches are. Can you elaborate?.
G.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 11:04 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
@ 2004-05-21 12:23 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 12:30 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
` (2 more replies)
2004-05-21 14:22 ` boyd, rounin
1 sibling, 3 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Alberto Cortes @ 2004-05-21 12:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Fri, 21 May 2004 13:04:29 +0000, Gorka Guardiola Muzquíz wrote:
> I don't understand what functional semantic searches are. Can you
> elaborate?.
When i am looking for where in a man page is the function "foobar"
explained, i don't want to care about if it is written with the first
letter in capitals, or if it has been sliced in half by an hyphenation
or if it has been pluralised... the computer should deal with these
problems, not me.
It is quite different from "Look"ing for a string in a file.
There will not be no problems if the man pages where written so you
could use "Look" for these task, as long as they are not, i will try
to implement a "semantic Look" and test it for a time, not as a
substitution of "Look" but as another verb.
--
url: http://montoya.aig.uc3m.es/~acortes/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 12:23 ` Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-21 12:30 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 12:48 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 14:27 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-21 14:50 ` boyd, rounin
2 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz @ 2004-05-21 12:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: alcortes, 9fans
> When i am looking for where in a man page is the function "foobar"
> explained, i don't want to care about if it is written with the first
> letter in capitals, or if it has been sliced in half by an hyphenation
> or if it has been pluralised... the computer should deal with these
> problems, not me.
As I said before, I don't think function names get pluralized or hyphenated,
so the solution is really simple.
Anyway, there be dragons. You are the only one who knows what you are looking
for. If not, next you'll want Lookw to understand latex or troff commands, to translate
url escaping... Better keeping things simple and general (working by intersection, not
union).
G.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 12:30 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
@ 2004-05-21 12:48 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 14:25 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
0 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Alberto Cortes @ 2004-05-21 12:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Fri, 21 May 2004 14:30:55 +0000, Gorka Guardiola Muzquíz wrote:
> As I said before, I don't think function names get pluralized or hyphenated,
> so the solution is really simple.
>
> Anyway, there be dragons. You are the only one who knows what you
> are looking for. If not, next you'll want Lookw to understand latex
> or troff commands, to translate url escaping...
Function names was just an example, you could be searching for
anything. And i am talking about searching in English texts, not
latex, troff, C... so i don't think i will have to deal with nothing
more than English language.
> Better keeping things simple and general (working by intersection, not
> union).
Yeah, i will try to keep it simple and general, just look for an
english word and derivatives in any english text. Quite useful for
searching in web pages, manual pages or documentation in general.
But i really don't know what do you mean by the intersection/union-thing.
--
url: http://montoya.aig.uc3m.es/~acortes/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 12:48 ` Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-21 14:25 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-21 14:34 ` Alberto Cortes
0 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Fco.J.Ballesteros @ 2004-05-21 14:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
> But i really don't know what do you mean by the intersection/union-thing.
You are trying to add (union) more features:
- search for a word
- search for a derivative
- search for a fortune
- ....
Instead, you could try to see which one is the intersection of all
the cases that's most useful for most of them:
- Look
- Lookw ? (you know, bounded to word limits)
hth
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 12:23 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 12:30 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
@ 2004-05-21 14:27 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-21 14:44 ` splite
2004-05-21 15:24 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 14:50 ` boyd, rounin
2 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Fco.J.Ballesteros @ 2004-05-21 14:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
BTW, from what has been said, I think that using the function name
as-is (no caps) in the manual page would suffice to keep all of us happy.
Am I right? Or someone already discarded this fix?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 14:27 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
@ 2004-05-21 14:44 ` splite
2004-05-21 15:24 ` boyd, rounin
1 sibling, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: splite @ 2004-05-21 14:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Fri, May 21, 2004 at 04:27:14PM +0200, Fco.J.Ballesteros wrote:
> BTW, from what has been said, I think that using the function name
> as-is (no caps) in the manual page would suffice to keep all of us happy.
> Am I right? Or someone already discarded this fix?
You are indeed right. man pages are reference works, not the Canterbury
Tales. If their usefulness as references would be impaired by slavish
adherence to formal English syntax then stuff the rules.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 14:27 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-21 14:44 ` splite
@ 2004-05-21 15:24 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 15:29 ` Fco. J. Ballesteros
1 sibling, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: boyd, rounin @ 2004-05-21 15:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> BTW, from what has been said, I think that using the function name
> as-is (no caps) in the manual page would suffice to keep all of us happy.
> Am I right? Or someone already discarded this fix?
err, .TH?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 15:24 ` boyd, rounin
@ 2004-05-21 15:29 ` Fco. J. Ballesteros
2004-05-21 16:23 ` Alberto Cortes
0 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Fco. J. Ballesteros @ 2004-05-21 15:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 142 bytes --]
Ok, Ok, I meant: using the object name as it is found in the code,
with no natural language rules obeyed for the object name on its own.
:-)
[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 2714 bytes --]
From: "boyd, rounin" <boyd@insultant.net>
To: "Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs" <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 17:24:28 +0200
Message-ID: <01b001c43f47$b7ccd9a0$207e7d50@SOMA>
> BTW, from what has been said, I think that using the function name
> as-is (no caps) in the manual page would suffice to keep all of us happy.
> Am I right? Or someone already discarded this fix?
err, .TH?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 12:23 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 12:30 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 14:27 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
@ 2004-05-21 14:50 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 15:57 ` boyd, rounin
2 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: boyd, rounin @ 2004-05-21 14:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Alberto Cortes, Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> When i am looking for where in a man page is the function "foobar"
> explained, i don't want to care about if it is written with the first
> letter in capitals, or if it has been sliced in half by an hyphenation
> or if it has been pluralised... the computer should deal with these
> problems, not me.
you figure that out for 1 human language, perfectly, and you _will_ make a
fortune.
english is easy to learn [500 words] but a nightmare to do perfectly:
i before e, except after c, except ...
the problem is difficult enough for [a-z] based languages. wait till you
hit ideographic based languages [chinese, japanese, ...] ...
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 14:50 ` boyd, rounin
@ 2004-05-21 15:57 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-24 2:10 ` Micah Stetson
0 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: boyd, rounin @ 2004-05-21 15:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> i before e, except after c, except ...
like 'surveillance' which probably is an imported french word (rob will
correct me) from verb 'surveiller'.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 15:57 ` boyd, rounin
@ 2004-05-24 2:10 ` Micah Stetson
2004-05-24 2:38 ` Greg Pavelcak
0 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Micah Stetson @ 2004-05-24 2:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> > i before e, except after c, except ...
>
> like 'surveillance' which probably is an imported french word (rob will
> correct me) from verb 'surveiller'.
"'I' before 'E', except after 'C' and when sounding like
'A' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'" (or surveillance) covers
nearly all cases. I don't think they ever told me the
second part in gradeschool, I learned that from my mom.
Micah
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-24 2:10 ` Micah Stetson
@ 2004-05-24 2:38 ` Greg Pavelcak
2004-05-24 3:47 ` Eric KD5UWL
2004-05-24 22:33 ` Micah Stetson
0 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Greg Pavelcak @ 2004-05-24 2:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 119 bytes --]
Neither leisured foreigner seized the heifer while
eating caffeine and codeine at a weird height with
a kaleidoscope.
[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 3007 bytes --]
From: Micah Stetson <micah@cnm-vra.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 19:10:01 -0700
Message-ID: <20040524021001.GA28057@epaphras>
> > i before e, except after c, except ...
>
> like 'surveillance' which probably is an imported french word (rob will
> correct me) from verb 'surveiller'.
"'I' before 'E', except after 'C' and when sounding like
'A' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'" (or surveillance) covers
nearly all cases. I don't think they ever told me the
second part in gradeschool, I learned that from my mom.
Micah
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-24 2:38 ` Greg Pavelcak
@ 2004-05-24 3:47 ` Eric KD5UWL
2004-05-24 15:46 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-24 22:33 ` Micah Stetson
1 sibling, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Eric KD5UWL @ 2004-05-24 3:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Well, technically,
> Neither leisured foreigner seized the heifer while
> eating caffeine and codeine at a weird height with
> a kaleidoscope.
the "ei" does come after "c" in "caffeine" and "codeine".
Do I win $10,000?
Eric
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-24 2:38 ` Greg Pavelcak
2004-05-24 3:47 ` Eric KD5UWL
@ 2004-05-24 22:33 ` Micah Stetson
1 sibling, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Micah Stetson @ 2004-05-24 22:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> Neither leisured foreigner seized the heifer while
> eating caffeine and codeine at a weird height with
> a kaleidoscope.
Ok, so I'm stupid. That'll teach me to quote rules I
don't actually use. It does rhyme, though, that should
count for something.
Micah
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 11:04 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 12:23 ` Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-21 14:22 ` boyd, rounin
1 sibling, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: boyd, rounin @ 2004-05-21 14:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> For me it works. I don't think functions are hyphenated.
underscore?
> If they are that is a bug, I think that, in English, proper nouns should
not be
> hyphenated.
.nh always being set?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 17:31 ` rog
2004-05-20 17:43 ` Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-20 20:43 ` vdharani
2004-05-20 18:18 ` boyd, rounin
1 sibling, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: vdharani @ 2004-05-20 20:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans; +Cc: rog, alcortes
>> i will modify the Look command to be case-insensitive on the first
>> letter of the word, and use it just for fun during a test period.
>
> while you're about it, i've thought for a while it'd be nice to have a
> "Lookw" command to look for whole words only, so I can easily search
> for single-letter variable names in my programs...
>
> the only current alternative as far as i can see is something like:
>
> :/(^|[^\\0-9a-zA-Z_])e($|[^0-9a-zA-Z_])
>
> to search for "e", which is a bit like hard work.
i like the idea of Lookw. I was wondering if it would be nice to have a
search facility which can search an identifier (instead of raw stream of
characters).
Thanks
dharani
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 17:20 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 17:31 ` rog
@ 2004-05-20 18:07 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-20 18:20 ` rog
2004-05-20 23:34 ` Brantley Coile
1 sibling, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: boyd, rounin @ 2004-05-20 18:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Alberto Cortes, Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> i will modify the Look command to be case-insensitive on the first letter
of the word
if you want windows style searches you know where to find them.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-20 15:53 ` [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why? Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 16:44 ` Russ Cox
@ 2004-05-20 17:02 ` Rob Pike
1 sibling, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2004-05-20 17:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Alberto Cortes, Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> was your talk with
> Doug on 9fans?
it was in his office, when we were talking about the format of man pages
for one of the published unix manuals.
-rob
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter i
2004-05-20 15:22 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-20 15:53 ` [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why? Alberto Cortes
@ 2004-05-21 9:01 ` Douglas A. Gwyn
2004-05-21 15:34 ` Rob Pike
1 sibling, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: Douglas A. Gwyn @ 2004-05-21 9:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
Rob Pike wrote:
> Let me put it to you this way: the first letter of a sentence
> is capitalized. As Doug said when we talked about this,
> 'the' isn't capitalized either, but we capitalize it at the
> beginning of a sentence to aid the reader.
The counterargument is that a proper name such as
Rob is capitalized the same no matter where it appears.
Further, "Foo" and "foo" designate two distinct
functions which can both exist in the same context,
so for clarity the exact name should be used.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter i
2004-05-21 9:01 ` [9fans] first capital letter i Douglas A. Gwyn
@ 2004-05-21 15:34 ` Rob Pike
0 siblings, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2004-05-21 15:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> Rob Pike wrote:
> > Let me put it to you this way: the first letter of a sentence
> > is capitalized. As Doug said when we talked about this,
> > 'the' isn't capitalized either, but we capitalize it at the
> > beginning of a sentence to aid the reader.
>
> The counterargument is that a proper name such as
> Rob is capitalized the same no matter where it appears.
> Further, "Foo" and "foo" designate two distinct
> functions which can both exist in the same context,
> so for clarity the exact name should be used.
>
I answered his question.
-rob
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter infunction names at man pages ¿why?
2004-05-20 14:59 [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages ¿why? Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 15:22 ` Rob Pike
@ 2004-05-20 16:57 ` matt lawless
2004-05-20 17:58 ` boyd, rounin
2 siblings, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: matt lawless @ 2004-05-20 16:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Alberto Cortes, Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Thu, 20 May 2004 16:59:25 +0200, "Alberto Cortes" <alcortes@coitt.es>
said:
> English uses first capital letter at after a ".".
>
> This convention has been used for manual pages, so when i open
> strcat(2) in and acme window and right click on strdup
when I am faced with this problem I highlight "trcat" rather than
"strcat"
and you could always use :/(S|s)trcat/
--
matt lawless
maht0x0r@xsmail.com
--
http://www.fastmail.fm - Access your email from home and the web
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter infunction names at man pages ¿why?
2004-05-20 14:59 [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages ¿why? Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 15:22 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-20 16:57 ` [9fans] first capital letter infunction names at man pages ¿why? matt lawless
@ 2004-05-20 17:58 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-20 18:09 ` Russ Cox
2 siblings, 1 reply; 61+ messages in thread
From: boyd, rounin @ 2004-05-20 17:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Alberto Cortes, Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> English uses first capital letter at after a ".".
and proper nouns etc ...
C != english
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
@ 2004-05-20 18:42 rog
2004-05-20 19:21 ` Scott Schwartz
2004-05-20 20:07 ` boyd, rounin
0 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: rog @ 2004-05-20 18:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
> you'd better write N parsers.
actually it's not an unreasonable idea to have a regular expression
engine that could work on arbitrary alphabets.
you could express it quite nicely with the new limbo
polymorphism stuff:
match[T](c: chan of T, p: ref Regex[T]): int for {
T =>
eq: fn(t: self T, t1: T): int;
eof: fn(t: self T): int;
}
so the alphabet would consist of members of type T, arriving down
channel c, being matched against a previously compiled pattern p.
match would return when it enounters a match, or reads a t such that
t.eof() is true.
then you could write N parsers and just plug 'em in.
i've got something that would allow one to use this kind of stuff
with a shell-like syntax. it's awaiting a bit more of my time...
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
@ 2004-05-21 0:36 dmr
2004-05-21 0:50 ` George Michaelson
2004-05-21 0:59 ` Rob Pike
0 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: dmr @ 2004-05-21 0:36 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: 9fans
> ... Dennis is quoted as saying `if you want PL/I you know where
> to find it,' when someone asked for a questionable feature. Does anyone
> know what that feature was?
In truth I have no idea whether I actually said it
as an original aphorism, or in what context.
Dennis
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 0:36 dmr
@ 2004-05-21 0:50 ` George Michaelson
2004-05-21 0:59 ` Rob Pike
1 sibling, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: George Michaelson @ 2004-05-21 0:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs; +Cc: dmr
On Thu, 20 May 2004 20:36:29 -0400 dmr@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> > ... Dennis is quoted as saying `if you want PL/I you know where
> > to find it,' when someone asked for a questionable feature. Does anyone
> > know what that feature was?
>
>In truth I have no idea whether I actually said it
>as an original aphorism, or in what context.
>
> Dennis
computed gotos?
compiling PL/1 was like dealing with assembler: every error masked the other
10,000 errors, so you got next to no repeat-bug find for each compile/edit pass.
the hubris of PL/1 implying either PL/2 or PL/0 was enormous!
(at least C put itself in the emotional range from A to Z slightly further in!
-and paid homage to BCPL..)
-George
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 0:36 dmr
2004-05-21 0:50 ` George Michaelson
@ 2004-05-21 0:59 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-21 2:13 ` boyd, rounin
` (2 more replies)
1 sibling, 3 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2004-05-21 0:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
when ken and i described the new features we were proposing for plan 9 C,
including inherited structure elements, to bjarne stroustrup, he said, "if you
want C++ you know where to find it." and stormed from the room.
i don't think he understood exactly why we were proposing these features.
-rob
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 0:59 ` Rob Pike
@ 2004-05-21 2:13 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 5:33 ` Taj Khattra
2004-05-21 15:35 ` Anastasopoulos S
2 siblings, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: boyd, rounin @ 2004-05-21 2:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> when ken and i described the new features we were proposing for plan 9 C
...
i remember another unix room time when when ken exclaimed:
persistant objects? we've got those. they're called files.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 0:59 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-21 2:13 ` boyd, rounin
@ 2004-05-21 5:33 ` Taj Khattra
2004-05-21 15:35 ` Anastasopoulos S
2 siblings, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Taj Khattra @ 2004-05-21 5:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset=unknown-8bit, Size: 142 bytes --]
> he said, "if you want C++ you know where to find it." and stormed from the room.
s/C++/C+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++/ ?
☺
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 0:59 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-21 2:13 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 5:33 ` Taj Khattra
@ 2004-05-21 15:35 ` Anastasopoulos S
2004-05-21 16:02 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-22 0:57 ` ron minnich
2 siblings, 2 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: Anastasopoulos S @ 2004-05-21 15:35 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Thu, 20 May 2004, Rob Pike wrote:
> when ken and i described the new features we were proposing for plan 9 C,
> including inherited structure elements, to bjarne stroustrup, he said, "if you
> want C++ you know where to find it." and stormed from the room.
>
> i don't think he understood exactly why we were proposing these features.
>
> -rob
>
I would like you to give us the reasons for these features and why you
didn't use C++ and i hope the answer won't start a C vs C++ debate at
9fans :-)
Spyros
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 15:35 ` Anastasopoulos S
@ 2004-05-21 16:02 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-22 0:57 ` ron minnich
1 sibling, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: boyd, rounin @ 2004-05-21 16:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
> I would like you to give us the reasons for these features and why you
> didn't use C++ ...
the story i heard, was that back in '84 or so, that when C++ was just cfront
things would compile and run one day and the next day they wouldn't even
compile. this annoyed people no end and so technology that worked [C] was
stuck to.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why?
2004-05-21 15:35 ` Anastasopoulos S
2004-05-21 16:02 ` boyd, rounin
@ 2004-05-22 0:57 ` ron minnich
1 sibling, 0 replies; 61+ messages in thread
From: ron minnich @ 2004-05-22 0:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs
On Fri, 21 May 2004, Anastasopoulos S wrote:
> I would like you to give us the reasons for these features and why you
> didn't use C++ and i hope the answer won't start a C vs C++ debate at
> 9fans :-)
if we can start an argument on how to capitalize, well ...
ron
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 61+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2004-05-24 22:33 UTC | newest]
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2004-05-20 14:59 [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages ¿why? Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 15:22 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-20 15:53 ` [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why? Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 16:44 ` Russ Cox
2004-05-20 17:20 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 17:31 ` rog
2004-05-20 17:43 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-20 17:50 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-21 17:20 ` Joel Salomon
2004-05-21 17:46 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 18:11 ` Jason Gurtz
2004-05-21 18:21 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-20 17:53 ` rog
2004-05-20 17:54 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 10:28 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 10:29 ` Dave Lukes
2004-05-21 10:57 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 11:04 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 12:23 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 12:30 ` Gorka Guardiola Múzquiz
2004-05-21 12:48 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 14:25 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-21 14:34 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 14:27 ` Fco.J.Ballesteros
2004-05-21 14:44 ` splite
2004-05-21 15:24 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 15:29 ` Fco. J. Ballesteros
2004-05-21 16:23 ` Alberto Cortes
2004-05-21 14:50 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 15:57 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-24 2:10 ` Micah Stetson
2004-05-24 2:38 ` Greg Pavelcak
2004-05-24 3:47 ` Eric KD5UWL
2004-05-24 15:46 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-24 22:33 ` Micah Stetson
2004-05-21 14:22 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-20 20:43 ` vdharani
2004-05-20 18:18 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-20 18:07 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-20 18:20 ` rog
2004-05-20 23:34 ` Brantley Coile
2004-05-20 17:02 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-21 9:01 ` [9fans] first capital letter i Douglas A. Gwyn
2004-05-21 15:34 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-20 16:57 ` [9fans] first capital letter infunction names at man pages ¿why? matt lawless
2004-05-20 17:58 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-20 18:09 ` Russ Cox
2004-05-20 18:42 [9fans] first capital letter in function names at man pages, why? rog
2004-05-20 19:21 ` Scott Schwartz
2004-05-20 20:07 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 14:05 ` rog
2004-05-21 15:12 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 16:25 ` rog
2004-05-21 0:36 dmr
2004-05-21 0:50 ` George Michaelson
2004-05-21 0:59 ` Rob Pike
2004-05-21 2:13 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-21 5:33 ` Taj Khattra
2004-05-21 15:35 ` Anastasopoulos S
2004-05-21 16:02 ` boyd, rounin
2004-05-22 0:57 ` ron minnich
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