Re: Non-grammatical statements

[slipbits]

Hi Kaz;

Thanks. Didn't know that. Now I'm smarter, well, let's just say I know 
more. Smarter is a stretch;

Is there another way that I can send comments to this group? I'd like to 
be a productive member in some way. I've been using Yacc/Bison for 40 
years or so, and have always felt that the documentation doesn't do 
justice to the product. If I remember correctly, this version of the 
documentation is far, far better than the one I used in about 2013. But 
I still have some difficulty.

Let's go down memory lane for a bit (since I'm really, really old, 
memory is an issue) The definition of LALR(1) culminated 15 years, or 
so, in intense effort to find a compiler-generator, as they were known 
in those days. The predecessor efforts were the development of a means 
to describe a computer Language (BNF), the LR(1) paper by Knuth, the 
SLR(1) paper a couple of years later, and then the DeRemer LALR(1) 
paper, which led to the development of Yacc.

Since that time there have been notable other developments, such as 
ambiguous grammars (EBNF), LL(1) parser generators, and of course, Bison.

I do have some history in developing documentation of one sort or 
another, and years ago produced some 700-800 pages of finished 
documentation per year exclusive of in-code documentation.  So I do 
bring some luggage with me.

If this is the only vehicle for contribution, so be it. But if there is 
another, can I be put on it?

thanks
art

On 6/9/2022 7:41 AM, Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> On 2022-06-08 13:10, slipbits wrote:
> > 3.7.13 Bison Declaration Summary
> >
> > "Directive: *%token-table*
> >
> >     This feature is obsolescent, avoid it in new projects."
> >
> > "obsolescent" should be "obsolete"
> This is incorrect. "Obsolescent" is a word, and it's used correctly here; it
> is the right word, and cannot be replaced by "obsolete".
>
> Example sentence:
>
>    "Certain features are obsolescent, which means that they may be considered 
> for
>     withdrawal in future revisions of this International Standard."
>
>      (ISO/IEC 9899:1999 "Programming Languages - C", Introduction)
>
> Moreover, you failed to spot the real error of orthography: the "run-on 
> sentence"
> situation when independent clauses are joined by a comma.
>
> Correct:
>
>     This feature is obsolescent; avoid it in new projects.
>
>     This feature is obsolescent. Avoid it in new projects.
>
> Some languages allow the comma as a clause joiner; written English doesn't.
>
> >         3.7.14 %define Summary
> >
> > "However, newer such features are associated with variables" should be 
> > "However, newer features are associated with variables
> This is also correct English: "newer such features" means "newer features in
> that same category" or "newer features such as that one".