Hi,
just a stupid note
- G_fatal_error(_("Unable to open raster map [%s]"), name_h);
+ G_fatal_error(_("Unable to open raster map <%s>"), name_h);
wouldn't be better to use "Cannot open raster map <%s>"?, see wiki and
discussion in grass-dev mailing list...
Martin
PS: Thanks to Carlos for this hard job!
--
Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com> * http://gama.fsv.cvut.cz/~landa *
Martin Landa escribió:
Hi,
just a stupid note
- G_fatal_error(_(“Unable to open raster map [%s]”), name_h);
- G_fatal_error(_(“Unable to open raster map <%s>”), name_h);
wouldn’t be better to use “Cannot open raster map <%s>”?, see wiki and
discussion in grass-dev mailing list…
For sure I may be wrong, but I’ve been revising wiki and lists (dev and translations) and I can’t see where it is suggested to use cannot instead of unable to.
What I found is:
From wiki
Use the present tense (cannot instead of could not; better: unable to)
…
G_open_cell_old
> > > 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.
It seems to me that “Unable to” is the most impartial form.
Martin
PS: Thanks to Carlos for this hard job!
Thanks to all of you for the support.
Ciao Carlos,
I am not sure too (it is the question for native speakers...)
http://www.nabble.com/message-standardization-on-wiki-tf3559274.html#a9939189
"Cannot open raster map" X "Unable to open raster map"
Martin
2007/7/6, Carlos Dávila <cdavilam@jemila.jazztel.es>:
Martin Landa escribió:
Hi,just a stupid note
- G_fatal_error(_("Unable to open raster map [%s]"), name_h);
+ G_fatal_error(_("Unable to open raster map <%s>"), name_h);wouldn't be better to use "Cannot open raster map <%s>"?, see wiki and
discussion in grass-dev mailing list...
For sure I may be wrong, but I've been revising wiki and lists (dev and
translations) and I can't see where it is suggested to use cannot instead of
unable to.
What I found is:
>From wikiStandard messages sandbox
First letter should be capitalized
Use the present tense (cannot instead of could not; better: unable to) ...G_open_cell_old "Unable to open raster map <%s>" >From translation list:
> > > 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.It seems to me that "Unable to" is the most impartial form.
Martin
PS: Thanks to Carlos for this hard job!
Thanks to all of you for the support._______________________________________________
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
--
Martin Landa <landa.martin@gmail.com> * http://gama.fsv.cvut.cz/~landa *
Martin Landa escribió:
Ciao Carlos,
I am not sure too (it is the question for native speakers...)
http://www.nabble.com/message-standardization-on-wiki-tf3559274.html#a9939189
"Cannot open raster map" X "Unable to open raster map"
Martin
OK, now I see. I'm afraid we have a contradiction in wiki, as in "Standard messages sandbox > Raster messages" we have "Cannot open raster map <%s>" and in "Messages discussion > G_open_cell_old" proposed standard response is "Unable open raster map <%s>", so we have to choose.
Any help from native speakers is welcome.
Regards
Carlos
2007/7/6, Carlos Dávila <cdavilam@jemila.jazztel.es>:
Martin Landa escribió:
Hi,just a stupid note
- G_fatal_error(_("Unable to open raster map [%s]"), name_h);
+ G_fatal_error(_("Unable to open raster map <%s>"), name_h);wouldn't be better to use "Cannot open raster map <%s>"?, see wiki and
discussion in grass-dev mailing list...
For sure I may be wrong, but I've been revising wiki and lists (dev and
translations) and I can't see where it is suggested to use cannot instead of
unable to.
What I found is:
>From wikiStandard messages sandbox
First letter should be capitalized
Use the present tense (cannot instead of could not; better: unable to) ...G_open_cell_old "Unable to open raster map <%s>" >From translation list:
> > > 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.It seems to me that "Unable to" is the most impartial form.
Martin
PS: Thanks to Carlos for this hard job!
Thanks to all of you for the support._______________________________________________
grass-dev mailing list
grass-dev@grass.itc.it
http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass-dev
On Fri, 2007-07-06 at 14:33 +0200, Martin Landa wrote:
Ciao Carlos,
I am not sure too (it is the question for native speakers...)
http://www.nabble.com/message-standardization-on-wiki-tf3559274.html#a9939189
"Cannot open raster map" X "Unable to open raster map"
There is no issue with tense here.
I prefer "Unable to". It's negative without being so forcefully
negative (if that makes any sense). Either will work, but I believe
there are fewer cases of "Cannot..." than "Unable to..." in source.
--
73, de Brad KB8UYR/6 <rez touchofmadness com>
On Fri, 6 Jul 2007, Brad Douglas wrote:
On Fri, 2007-07-06 at 14:33 +0200, Martin Landa wrote:
Ciao Carlos,
I am not sure too (it is the question for native speakers...)
http://www.nabble.com/message-standardization-on-wiki-tf3559274.html#a9939189
"Cannot open raster map" X "Unable to open raster map"
There is no issue with tense here.
I prefer "Unable to". It's negative without being so forcefully
negative (if that makes any sense). Either will work, but I believe
there are fewer cases of "Cannot..." than "Unable to..." in source.
I'm just replying to make the point how there really seems to be no difference between the two forms: I disagree with the above and feel "unable to" sounds much more harsh and formal than "can not", "cannot" or "can't", which IMHO correspond more with every day speech. But perhaps there is a American/European English difference here. In which case given GRASS's roots the American is probably the way to go I guess? Are there any languages into which, when translated, the two phrases mean something substantially different?
In any case I think it is clearer if error messages like these (resulting from filesystem errors) are augmented where possible with the system error message from strerror(errno()) - see e.g. in lib/gis/copy_file.c:
G_warning( "Cannot open %s for reading: %s", infile,
strerror(errno) );
Here's a thought - to me, "unable to" suggests that the reason why something could not be done is outside GRASS's control, and perhaps would suit the above example from G_copy_file() better than "cannot" as the reason (the system error message) is presented after the GRASS error. Whereas perhaps "cannot" suggests that's simply all there is to it and the program is unable to go into any more depth on what caused the error.
i.e.
"unable to": error/warning caused by something outside GRASS; say what it is
"cannot": error/warning is something within GRASS that genuinely isn't possible.
But I'm really splitting hairs here, trying to justify why we have the two forms in GRASS. But perhaps it isn't possible to justify that...
Paul
On Sat, 2007-07-07 at 00:48 +0100, Paul Kelly wrote:
On Fri, 6 Jul 2007, Brad Douglas wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-07-06 at 14:33 +0200, Martin Landa wrote:
>> Ciao Carlos,
>>
>> I am not sure too (it is the question for native speakers...)
>>
>> http://www.nabble.com/message-standardization-on-wiki-tf3559274.html#a9939189
>>
>> "Cannot open raster map" X "Unable to open raster map"
>
> There is no issue with tense here.
>
> I prefer "Unable to". It's negative without being so forcefully
> negative (if that makes any sense). Either will work, but I believe
> there are fewer cases of "Cannot..." than "Unable to..." in source.I'm just replying to make the point how there really seems to be no
difference between the two forms: I disagree with the above and feel
"unable to" sounds much more harsh and formal than "can not", "cannot" or
"can't", which IMHO correspond more with every day speech. But perhaps
there is a American/European English difference here. In which case given
GRASS's roots the American is probably the way to go I guess? Are there
any languages into which, when translated, the two phrases mean something
substantially different?
Correct, that there is essentially no different. For me, it's a matter
of flow, rather than flipping a coin.
Contractions are EVIL and should not be used. That includes "cannot"
and "can't". Those are both out. We're left with "Can not". I don't
like it because it negates a positive, but that's my personal choice.
I could care less which of the two gets used, as long as it is
consistent.
In any case I think it is clearer if error messages like these (resulting
from filesystem errors) are augmented where possible with the system error
message from strerror(errno()) - see e.g. in lib/gis/copy_file.c:
G_warning( "Cannot open %s for reading: %s", infile,
strerror(errno) );
See above.
Here's a thought - to me, "unable to" suggests that the reason why
something could not be done is outside GRASS's control, and perhaps would
suit the above example from G_copy_file() better than "cannot" as the
reason (the system error message) is presented after the GRASS error.
Whereas perhaps "cannot" suggests that's simply all there is to it and
the program is unable to go into any more depth on what caused the error.
i.e.
"unable to": error/warning caused by something outside GRASS; say what it
is
"cannot": error/warning is something within GRASS that genuinely isn't
possible.
But I'm really splitting hairs here, trying to justify why we have the two
forms in GRASS. But perhaps it isn't possible to justify that...
Maybe we should put it to a vote, even though it is a mundane issue.
Both are acceptable choices...it's just a matter of choosing one and not
looking back.
--
73, de Brad KB8UYR/6 <rez touchofmadness com>