Re: RFC: Better formatting for long descriptions
On Wed, Apr 15 2009, Guillem Jover wrote:
> Tag \* was used 9277 times (68.0900%)
> Tag - was used 3837 times (28.1600%)
> Tag + was used 120 times (.8800%)
> Tag o was used 390 times (2.8600%)
>
> Regardless of the numbers though (which have moved lately slightly in
> favour of '-' due to the recommendations from the Smith reviewing
> project), I've always found the asterisk the obvious character to use
> for bulleted lists, as it's the one ressembling the most a bullet, and
> it's the one we use in changelog entries and similar.
The primary goal of the description is to convey to the user why
they should install the package. The maintainer can use an unsorted
list to help convey the information; and any means that make it clear
to the user that they are looking at a list is good enough.
Anything beyond that seems like striving for a foolish
consistency; and the basic assumption being made (which does
not, in my opinion, hold) is that a rigid monotonic conformity is
aesthetically pleasing. I think a variety in the symbols used for
bullets is better, in that it breaks the monotony.
Do we really have nothing better to do than to impose
bureaucratic rules on what characters to use as bullet symbols in long
descriptions even if the user can tell that the character is a bullet?
manoj
--
Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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