Re: Inconsistencies in our approach
On Thu, 7 Aug 2003 16:33:05 -0500, John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> said:
> On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 12:17:09PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
>> On Sun, Aug 03, 2003 at 02:10:37AM +0200, Sergey V. Spiridonov
>> wrote:
>> > If one does not see the difference between program and
>> > documentation, it is very hard to explain why they do not need
>> > the same kind of freedoms.
>>
>> If one cannot coherently and usefully *describe* the difference
>> between programs and documentation, it is difficult for other
>> people to see it.
> Documentation consists of instructions primarily intended to be
> human-readable regarding the operation of something such as a
> program.
> Programs consist of instructions primarily intended to be
> machine-readable that either contain machine language binary data or
> instructions designed to be interpreted or converted into that at
> runtime. Programs will always contain source code or machine
> language code, and often both.
> I will grant that these definitions are imperfect and improbable
> arguments could be lodged against them; at the same time, I believe
> that reasonable people not engaging in a Jesuit exercise to find
> logical needles in a haystack of common sense are able to tell the
> difference between a manpage and a C source file.
Sure, there are clear cut examples of files that quite clearly
belong to one case or the other. I am distressed to see that you
consider a real life corner case that I posted in a message with id
Message-ID: <[🔎] 877k5vq5oc.fsf@glaurung.green-gryphon.com>
The problem is not that there are examples of files that are
clearly documentation and clearly program code; the problem comes
with cases, like literate programing, amongst others, where such a
clear cut distinction no longer exists. In my experience, such a
blurring of the distinctions between data, source code, and
documentation is on the increase, rather then declining; and I think
we should model the core of our response not merely on our past
experience, but on a reasonable projection of where the future is
going to take us. (I personally believe that the distinction between
data, source, and documentation is artificial, and merely a matter of
convention, and the boundaries shall blur even more in the future).
manoj
--
There are only two kinds of men -- the dead and the deadly. Helen
Rowland
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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