Re: Emacs-devel Digest, Vol 44, Issue 176

Re: Emacs-devel Digest, Vol 44, Issue 176

[Eric S. Raymond]

emacs-devel-request@gnu.org <emacs-devel-request@gnu.org>:
> What do yo think of my other suggestion, which is to drop the word
> `fileset' in documentation where the reference is to a list, as in
> `vc-svn-diff'?

I don't think the mere plural 'files' effectively conveys the idea
that these things are treated atomically as a group rather than sliced
and diced in parallel as in old VC.

Which is the reasonm I started using the term 'filset' to begin with.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

Re: Emacs-devel Digest, Vol 44, Issue 176

[Miles Bader]

"Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com> writes:
> I don't think the mere plural 'files' effectively conveys the idea
> that these things are treated atomically as a group rather than sliced
> and diced in parallel as in old VC.

Frankly, neither does the term "fileset".  It suggests "set of files", and
says nothing about how they are handled.

The place to make that clear is in the documentation.

-Miles

-- 
Come now, if we were really planning to harm you, would we be waiting here,
 beside the path, in the very darkest part of the forest?

Re: Emacs-devel Digest, Vol 44, Issue 176

[Stefan Monnier]

> I don't think the mere plural 'files' effectively conveys the idea
> that these things are treated atomically as a group rather than sliced
> and diced in parallel as in old VC.

This is a mere "quality of implementation" detail, so I don't think it has
any importance in the manual and the docstrings.


        Stefan

Re: Emacs-devel Digest, Vol 44, Issue 176

[Eric S. Raymond]

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>:
> "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com> writes:
> > I don't think the mere plural 'files' effectively conveys the idea
> > that these things are treated atomically as a group rather than sliced
> > and diced in parallel as in old VC.
> 
> Frankly, neither does the term "fileset".  It suggests "set of files", and
> says nothing about how they are handled.

But at least it connotes a unit.

> The place to make that clear is in the documentation.

Which I think I have done in my most recent commit to files.texi.

Unless someone else has *specific wordsmithing* which is an improvement
on the language now in files.texi, I think this discussion has ceased
to serve a useful purpose.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

Re: filesets

[Robert J. Chassell]

   Unless someone else has *specific wordsmithing* ...

Very few people have time to think up *specific wordsmithing* so that
statement comes across as bullying.  Please use wording that attracts
more help.

Please consider changes as necessary for both the function
documentation (which may apply to a bunch of VC related libraries) and
to the Info documention.

(Then changes may be -- but I am not sure -- that the word `fileset'
is not worth reusing with a different meaning in a different context
and that the word `list', meaning a Lisp list, an atomic item, needs
explanation, if that word be used instead the word `fileset'.)

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                          GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    bob@rattlesnake.com                         bob@gnu.org
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  http://www.teak.cc