a stumper

Subject: a stumper
From: Cheng Derek <CDerek -at- GATE-HAL -dot- PSD -dot- SYMBOL -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 09:28:09 EDT

Alright, here's a stumper for y'all.

In the process of reducing unnecessary words but working in active voice,
I've run into an interesting dilemna (sp?).

Let's say we're working in a unix environment where character case is
essential and we are describing an element of unix. A sentence might
read:

usadr contains the terminal user address. usadr is 16-characters long.

The sentence would begin with a lower case letter. Strange yet inherently
beautiful.

I could re-write it to read:

The usadr field contains the user address for each terminal. The usadr
field is 16-characters long.

But a programmer who is familiar with usadr does not need to know that it
is a field name.

Talk amongst yourselves...

ps. the examples given are strictly examples and have no real informative
value. in fact, i suggest just thinking about the model rather than the
specific example. i was hard-pressed for a real one.

-derek

~ ^ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
@ @ "The courtroom is a crucible. It it, we burn away at
^ irrelevancies until we are left with one thing:
( \___/ ) the truth, for all time."
- Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
cderek -at- psd -dot- symbol -dot- com


Previous by Author: Fave references
Next by Author: TAFORD
Previous by Thread: Five THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!
Next by Thread: Re: a stumper


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads