Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 3de474e: Spelling fixes

Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 3de474e: Spelling fixes

[Stefan Monnier]

>     * lib-src/etags.c (analyze_regex): Rename from analyse_regex.

How is that fixing anything?  Last I checked "analyze" is the standard
US spelling of the British "analyse", and Emacs as a general rule does
not prefer British spelling (and I personally like spelling fixes but
consider English spelling to include both US and British spelling, so
changing one form to the other is just a waste of time).


        Stefan

RE: [Emacs-diffs] master 3de474e: Spelling fixes

[Drew Adams]

> >     * lib-src/etags.c (analyze_regex): Rename from analyse_regex.
> 
> How is that fixing anything?  Last I checked "analyze" is the
> standard US spelling of the British "analyse", and Emacs as a
> general rule does not prefer British spelling (and I personally
> like spelling fixes but consider English spelling to include both
> US and British spelling, so changing one form to the other is just
> a waste of time).

No.  Pick one and be consistent.  AFAIK, U.S. spelling, and U.S.
usage in general, has already been picked.

Spelling bugs are not the most important buts, surely.  But they
do affect the ability of users (and even tools sometimes) to
interact with Emacs.  Think search, in particular.

Now, if you are going to provide Google-like fuzzily semantic
& phonetic search heuristics to *all* Emacs access functions,
including all kinds of "search", then spelling might not be so
important.  But even in that case it is important for the base
naming/text to be consistent, so that tools accessing/searching
at such a "raw" level can work better and more simply.

Saying that changing to US spelling is "a waste of time" is,
well, irresponsible.  It might be a waste of your time for you
to do that, but it is not a waste of time for someone to
improve Emacs in this way.

Saying "How is that fixing anything?" when someone proposes
or makes such a fix is fundamentally misguided and unhelpful.

Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 3de474e: Spelling fixes

[Paul Eggert]

Stefan Monnier wrote:
> Emacs as a general rule does not prefer British spelling

That's right, we prefer American spelling in the Emacs sources, which is why the 
change was a fix.  (Unless I'm missing something?  Perhaps I analyzed your email 
incorrectly? :-)

Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 3de474e: Spelling fixes

[Stefan Monnier]

> No.  Pick one and be consistent.

Nitpicking,


        Stefan

Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 3de474e: Spelling fixes

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

We prefer US spelling in GNU.
So it is good, in general, to change British spellings to US spellings.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.