Re: [boost] Gender neutral documentation
In-Reply-To: <uacgkh76q.fsf@boost-consulting.com> dave@boost-consulting.com (David Abrahams) wrote (abridged):
Angus' version is better.
This means that if Bind is unneeded the user can discard it completely.
Of course, "this" needs an antecedent :)
For example, if Bind is unneeded the user can discard it completely.
is much more to the point.
But "is unneeded" again fails to say who doesn't need it, and hence fails to say why it isn't needed. It's vague. I think clarity and precision are more important than good grammar or political correctness. -- Dave Harris, Nottingham, UK.
brangdon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Dave Harris) writes:
In-Reply-To: <uacgkh76q.fsf@boost-consulting.com> dave@boost-consulting.com (David Abrahams) wrote (abridged):
Angus' version is better.
This means that if Bind is unneeded the user can discard it completely.
Of course, "this" needs an antecedent :)
For example, if Bind is unneeded the user can discard it completely.
is much more to the point.
But "is unneeded" again fails to say who doesn't need it, and hence fails to say why it isn't needed.
I don't see how saying who doesn't need it would indicate anything about why it isn't needed.
It's vague.
Very slightly, but then the original statement is vague. What kind of "discarding" are we talking about, anyway? If the user doesn't need Bind he... doesn't have to use it. What is there to discard?
I think clarity and precision are more important than good grammar or political correctness.
Agree. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com
David Abrahams wrote:
brangdon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Dave Harris) writes:
For example, if Bind is unneeded the user can discard it completely.
is much more to the point.
But "is unneeded" again fails to say who doesn't need it, and hence fails to say why it isn't needed.
I don't see how saying who doesn't need it would indicate anything about why it isn't needed.
It's vague.
Very slightly, but then the original statement is vague. What kind of "discarding" are we talking about, anyway? If the user doesn't need Bind he... doesn't have to use it. What is there to discard?
The Bind module? The context is about modular vs. monolithic architectures. I wanted to emphasize orthogonality and clean lines that separate each module. For reference, here's the context in whole: http://tinyurl.com/c7kdl. Why is that important? you can strip it to the core and it will still be useful. I am a big fan of that ability. For instance, there's a package of Spirit that uses only a minimal subset of Boost (we call miniboost). When stripped to the core, Spirit should still be usable, with lesser dependencies on underlying libraries. Modular libraries are a joy to use in that regard. An original objective was to make the core Spirit dependencies as small as say, Tokenizer. This is only possible if the underlying libraries be as modular as possible. Regards, -- Joel de Guzman http://www.boost-consulting.com http://spirit.sf.net
Joel de Guzman <joel@boost-consulting.com> writes:
David Abrahams wrote:
brangdon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Dave Harris) writes:
For example, if Bind is unneeded the user can discard it completely.
is much more to the point.
But "is unneeded" again fails to say who doesn't need it, and hence fails to say why it isn't needed.
I don't see how saying who doesn't need it would indicate anything about why it isn't needed.
It's vague.
Very slightly, but then the original statement is vague. What kind of "discarding" are we talking about, anyway? If the user doesn't need Bind he... doesn't have to use it. What is there to discard?
The Bind module?
Yeah, but what do you mean by "discard?" Remove the headers from the disk? If that's what you mean, I think you should say so.
The context is about modular vs. monolithic architectures. I wanted to emphasize orthogonality and clean lines that separate each module. For reference, here's the context in whole: http://tinyurl.com/c7kdl. Why is that important? you can strip it to the core and it will still be useful. I am a big fan of that ability. For instance, there's a package of Spirit that uses only a minimal subset of Boost (we call miniboost). When stripped to the core, Spirit should still be usable, with lesser dependencies on underlying libraries. Modular libraries are a joy to use in that regard. An original objective was to make the core Spirit dependencies as small as say, Tokenizer. This is only possible if the underlying libraries be as modular as possible.
Agreed. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com
participants (1)
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brangdon＠cix.compulink.co.uk -
David Abrahams -
Joel de Guzman