[MPlayer-DOCS] CVS: main/DOCS/man/en mplayer.1,1.604,1.605

[The Wanderer]

Diego Biurrun wrote:

> The Wanderer writes:

>> That's what I thought; it's what I understood from the previous way
>> of phrasing it. The replacement way says to me "supports playlists
>> which are one file per line, but they must be in Winamp or ASX
>> format".
>> 
>> A simple rearrangement - "(ASX, SMIL, Winamp, or one-file-per-line
>> format)" - ought to fix the problem.
> 
> Fixed.
> 
> One question about commas in English: If you write several things in
> a row separated by commas as well as the words "and" and "or", does
> the and/or replace the comma or not?
> 
> foo, bar and foobar

As I understand it, according to formal usage this is correct; however,
in many cases

> foo, bar, and foobar

reads much better to me, and I use one or the other depending on the
particular instance at hand.

Part of the reason why I don't always use the "correct" form is
ambiguity in phrases with compound terms - a phrase like "a, b, c or d,
and e", for instance (the "and" and "or" can easily swap roles for a
similar effect). Part of it is just a matter of trying to get the pauses
right - an issue to which I have given a rather considerable amount of
informal study.

> foo and bar and foobar
> 
> foo, and bar, and foobar

Neither of these is correct, except in extreme and/or rare circumstances
(I can imagine a case in which I might want to use the latter form, but
that's mostly as a rhetorical gimmick - hence more appropriate for
speech or similar conversational contexts; the former of the two I don't
think is ever appropriate).

>> For another "while we're at it": is my printf > mp_msg initial
>> patch (on -dev) going to get any further attention? I left off
>> having asked some questions about what needed to be fixed (mostly
>> in terms of messages moved to the translation file) before
>> committing it, and have gotten no reply. I could post a slightly
>> revised version of the patch (one or two tiny things changed) as a
>> way of dragging attention back, but since much of that might have
>> to be altered I'm a little reluctant to use up bandwidth and
>> archive space when the parts which need attention are already
>> there. I kept working on more for a little while anyway, but by now
>> have pretty much dropped it until I hear back on what needs to be
>> done how.
> 
> I can perfectly understand your frustration.  Fear not, though, we
> are very slow to react sometimes but we rarely if ever completely
> ignore patches.

I've noticed that, yes, but that's the thing: it wasn't completely
ignored, it's just that after I asked some questions about the first
round or two of comments nobody ever got back to it again.

> If you still haven't given up completely I would love to get some
> help reviewing the manual page.  I've done this on paper some time
> ago but I haven't yet committed all of it.  It would be a duplication
> of work to start before I have committed that, but I could just tell
> you once this has happened.

I'm not sure I'd be able to handle that very well, but I'd certainly be
willing to give it a look; just let me know when it's clear.

> Hopefully, this ought to be a tad more rewarding since I am one of
> the quicker devs when it comes to applying/commenting patches.

Well, perhaps - but it's also somewhat less *interesting*.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

A government exists to serve its citizens, not to control them.