From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
To: Sebastian Urban <mrsebastianurban@gmail.com>,
Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Cc: 35885@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#35885: 25.2; Few mistakes in Emacs Manual (+ proposals)
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2019 06:25:40 -0700 (PDT) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <89e04fc0-d31b-4247-8126-0b7a7f60d661@default> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <31ab26f7-a31e-7f4b-f6ba-c050aeeb6833@gmail.com>
> > As for the few examples saying "if N is negative <do something> −N
> > times": sorry, I cannot see anything wrong with such wording, so
> > I left those few examples alone.
>
> Well I don't think I can explain this more clearly, so I'm going to
> put this next to 'C-g C-g' "problem", i.e. we will wait for other
> opinions if they ever appear. Until then I'll consider this thread
> closed.
"I cannot see anything wrong with such wording", versus
it could be improved a bit to avoid confusion like that
evidenced by this bug report.
A user reading "...-N..." CAN easily misread it. Yes,
MISread. There is not "anything wrong" with it, in the
sense that if you read it right you won't misunderstand
it. But that's a low bar, and Emacs can do better.
To read it right you have to have grasped and recalled
that N is a placeholder for an integer value, and in
the context of that `-N' occurrence it is a placeholder
for a negative integer.
Understanding that that's the case, a reader will also
correctly interpret the `-' as a minus sign (not, e.g.,
as a dash or hyphen or whatever else in ordinary text).
MISunderstanding, a reader can easily not interpret the
math expression `-N' as math at all. (And note that
it's not within `...', so it's likely not taken as Lisp
math.
If we instead use `(abs N)', that makes clear - yes, as
a reminder or a pay-attention note - that N is a number
and the result of that expression is its absolute value.
That clues a reader into the fact that N might be - in
fact is in this case - negative.
It's not about proving that the `-N' wording is guilty
or defending its innocence in a court case. It's about
making things a little clearer. It's about seeing it
from the point of view of someone who might misread it.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-06-12 13:25 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 48+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-05-24 15:59 bug#35885: 25.2; Few mistakes in Emacs Manual (+ proposals) Sebastian Urban
2019-06-02 22:50 ` Sebastian Urban
2019-06-03 16:36 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-06-04 10:48 ` Sebastian Urban
2019-06-04 15:12 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-06-05 10:40 ` Sebastian Urban
2019-06-05 16:52 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-06-06 9:49 ` Sebastian Urban
2019-06-06 21:19 ` Sebastian Urban
2019-06-09 8:31 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-06-09 8:22 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-06-10 10:30 ` Sebastian Urban
2019-06-10 17:01 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-06-11 10:32 ` Sebastian Urban
2019-06-11 16:59 ` Eli Zaretskii
2019-06-12 8:44 ` Sebastian Urban
2019-06-12 13:25 ` Drew Adams [this message]
2019-06-03 16:32 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-10 20:02 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-13 9:11 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-13 13:20 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-08-13 14:06 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-13 14:16 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-08-14 0:01 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-15 13:18 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-08-15 13:34 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-08-15 13:52 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-08-15 14:11 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-16 11:16 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-08-16 13:00 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-18 14:54 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-08-18 15:07 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-08-19 10:15 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-08-19 8:44 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-19 10:19 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-08-19 12:14 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-20 12:44 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-08-20 13:35 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-08-20 18:24 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-08-22 7:20 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-08-22 10:19 ` Sebastian Urban
2020-10-19 18:52 ` Sebastian Urban
2021-05-12 14:47 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2021-05-13 11:48 ` Sebastian Urban
2021-05-16 13:30 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2021-05-18 9:17 ` Sebastian Urban
2021-05-18 13:15 ` bug#42199: " Lars Ingebrigtsen
[not found] <<cf31e2b2-3ad4-57f0-8847-e5f01ff35fc8@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<f2fff09b-fc97-795b-dc3b-4175c48234db@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<83k1e2tym6.fsf@gnu.org>
[not found] ` <<e083f8bd-8c77-3558-c373-a8d9d9ef6079@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<835zpltme6.fsf@gnu.org>
[not found] ` <<d1695e2e-7f87-7493-fbd9-97cd6347d837@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<83muiwrn2u.fsf@gnu.org>
[not found] ` <<1583c6b3-2421-794d-8c8b-86287ef3fd5a@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<83tvczb236.fsf@gnu.org>
[not found] ` <<616312d4-0faf-0382-3f21-5b66327d8d8b@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<83tvcx9xyl.fsf@gnu.org>
2019-06-10 17:44 ` Drew Adams
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