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Re: [bug #39028] [patch] fix and uniformize four error messages


From: Edward Welbourne
Subject: Re: [bug #39028] [patch] fix and uniformize four error messages
Date: Tue, 21 May 2013 20:36:54 +0000

> Anyway, I'll stop here on that particular bikesheed. I was just a bit
> disappointed with the tendency to want to dumb down everything...

... and I was reacting primarily against the apparently knee-jerk
reaction against plain language as automatically - ipso facto, by virtue
of being plain language - "dumbing down" and being a "lowest common
denominator".  There are, to be sure situations where technical
terminology can express a meaning more succinctly and precisely: by all
means use it then.  There have, indeed, been many who have - in the name
of reaching a wider audience - used plain language where it fails to
properly express the meaning, or hampers readability by bloating the
text.  None the less, there are lots of places where we can use plain
language to express our meanings perfectly clearly and quite concisely:
when we can, it is usually best to do so.

If the merits of the case in hand favour "integer" or "integral", by all
means use it, I merely offered "whole" as a suggestion,

        Eddy.



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