[GRASS-dev] message standardization on wiki

Can I suggest the following rules
1. First letter should be capitalized
2. Use present tense (cannot instead of could not)
3. No contractions (cannot instead of can't)
4. Good sentence construction ("Cannot find input map <%s>" instead of "It could not be find input map <%s>")
5. Be consistent with periods. Either end all phrases with a period or none.

Regards,

Jerry

---- Original message ----

Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:07:21 +0200
From: "Martin Landa" <landa.martin@gmail.com>
Subject: [GRASS-dev] message standardization on wiki
To: grass-dev <grass-dev@grass.itc.it>, translations@grass.itc.it

Hi all,

updating Czech translation of GRASS I am suggesting some of standard
messages. There are lot of library functions which are very often used
(e.g. G_find_cell2() or G_find_vector2()), but messages are *very*
different, see

http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/Development_Specs#Messages_Discussion

Please feel free to extend the list of "standard messages", correct
existing (cannot -> could not?, ...), etc. then I will be happy to
change messages in GRASS code according this proposal.

http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/Development_Specs#Standard_messages_sandbox

also

http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/wiki/Development_Specs#How_should_Errors.2FWarnings.2FMessages_be_formatted

Not important, but really pain for GRASS translators...

Martin

--
Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com> * http://gama.fsv.cvut.cz/~landa *

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On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 08:44 -0500, Gerald Nelson wrote:

Can I suggest the following rules
1. First letter should be capitalized
2. Use present tense (cannot instead of could not)
3. No contractions (cannot instead of can't)
4. Good sentence construction ("Cannot find input map <%s>" instead of "It could not be find input map <%s>")
5. Be consistent with periods. Either end all phrases with a period or none.

I would prefer not using "Cannot...". It's bad grammar. I would much
prefer "Unable to..." or something to that effect.

--
Brad Douglas <rez touchofmadness com> KB8UYR/6
Address: 37.493,-121.924 / WGS84 National Map Corps #TNMC-3785

Brad Douglas wrote:

> 1. First letter should be capitalized
> 2. Use present tense (cannot instead of could not)
> 3. No contractions (cannot instead of can't)
> 4. Good sentence construction ("Cannot find input map <%s>" instead of "It could not be find input map <%s>")
> 5. Be consistent with periods. Either end all phrases with a period or none.

I would prefer not using "Cannot...". It's bad grammar. I would much
prefer "Unable to..." or something to that effect.

While I can see your point, that construction is quite common in error
messages, e.g.:

  $ ls -l foo
  ls: cannot access foo: No such file or directory

Neither "cannot ..." nor "unable to ..." form complete sentences.

If you're concerned about grammar, you can provide an explicit subject
("The program cannot ..."), or use the third person (e.g. "The file
cannot be found").

Personally, I don't have a problem with just omitting the subject.

--
Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>

On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 14:41 +0100, Glynn Clements wrote:

Brad Douglas wrote:

> > 1. First letter should be capitalized
> > 2. Use present tense (cannot instead of could not)
> > 3. No contractions (cannot instead of can't)
> > 4. Good sentence construction ("Cannot find input map <%s>" instead of "It could not be find input map <%s>")
> > 5. Be consistent with periods. Either end all phrases with a period or none.
>
> I would prefer not using "Cannot...". It's bad grammar. I would much
> prefer "Unable to..." or something to that effect.

While I can see your point, that construction is quite common in error
messages, e.g.:

  $ ls -l foo
  ls: cannot access foo: No such file or directory

Neither "cannot ..." nor "unable to ..." form complete sentences.

If you're concerned about grammar, you can provide an explicit subject
("The program cannot ..."), or use the third person (e.g. "The file
cannot be found").

Personally, I don't have a problem with just omitting the subject.

Point taken. I was really referring to the usage of "Cannot". Some
dictionaries do not recognize it as 'real word', yet others (that are
generally more progressive with slang and contractions) say that it
should replace "can not" in modern English.

It's a non-problem. In modules I've [re]written, I've used "Unable to",
but I can go back and change them for consistency.

--
Brad Douglas <rez touchofmadness com> KB8UYR/6
Address: 37.493,-121.924 / WGS84 National Map Corps #TNMC-3785