On Sun, Aug 24, 2003 at 03:25:48PM +0300, Richard Braakman wrote: > On Sun, Aug 24, 2003 at 12:39:04AM -0500, John Goerzen wrote: > > > Yet we do routinely apply the DFSG to interpreted scripts where there > > > is *no* differentiation between source code and compiled form. > > > > Not really; it's just that the compiled form is often transient. > > How is this different from documentation? Most people don't read > HTML or SGML directly, they use an interpreter. The difference being that HTML or SGML *can* be read reasonably easy without an interpreter. While I will accept that there may be people who are able to read a compiled binary by doing something like 'cat /usr/bin/foo', I suspect that most people on this planet are not able to do so. The same is not true for HTML or SGML. (I'm not suggesting this is a good definition for documentation, but it is a good lead) > > But anyway, documentation is not source code. That is my main quibble. > > It looks like source code, smells like source code, and behaves like > source code. Yeah, but its purpose isn't the same as source code. [...] -- Wouter Verhelst Debian GNU/Linux -- http://www.debian.org Nederlandstalige Linux-documentatie -- http://nl.linux.org "Stop breathing down my neck." "My breathing is merely a simulation." "So is my neck, stop it anyway!" -- Voyager's EMH versus the Prometheus' EMH, stardate 51462.
Attachment:
pgpi1dKVHfFCI.pgp
Description: PGP signature