Re: Fix UK spelling in comments and ChangeLog entries?

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hi, David and everybody else!

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 11:42:55AM +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

[ .... ]

> Anyway, the point is that Emacs _has_ chosen a language for its
> documentation.  It would be out of place if I commented my
> contributions in German, so why should others document in British?  We
> also have coding conventions we retain.

Well, I believe German was considered at one point, but with a right
margin (now) of only 65 in doc strings, that would exclude too many
words for German to be practical.

[ .... ]

> > So, yes, on balance, I would prefer British spellings to be left
> > alone in my Changelog entries and comments, but if Greg or anybody
> > else wants to "correct" them, it won't really bother me at all.
> > There's more pressing things to worry about.

> The problem is that ChangeLog entries can become NEWS eventually, and
> comments become DOC strings.  And all are things people tend to grep
> for.  And yes, this thread has been about "anybody else" wanting to
> correct things, not about rejecting contributions or tying down
> resources people want to spend elsewhere.

Sorry, just to clarify, I meant that there're more pressing things for
_me_ to worry about than moaning about my comments/ChangeLog entries
being changed.  So if somebody does it, I won't moan, I won't even feel
resentful.

> > In a way, it's a bit like rigorously (no asides here, please!)
> > enforcing a particular way of laying out C code; lots of coding shops
> > in the proprietary world try (mostly half-heartedly) to do this, and
> > most hackers just ignore the silly rules.  Following them would wipe
> > out useful information about who wrote what.

> We have Elisp coding conventions in Emacs, and C coding conventions, and
> yes, adhering to them is strongly desired.  Nobody complained about that
> as far as I remember.

Well, the GNU coding standards, unlike most ones in the "real world", are
sensible, and GNU provides a way of adhering to them without effort (at
least, without effort apart from mine).

> -- 
> David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).