Re: Changes

[Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr>]

On Sun, Aug 20, 2000 at 01:24:08AM +0200, peter karlsson wrote:
> When you change markup on pages and don't change the content, please
> try to change as few lines as possible, so that I, and the other
> translators, won't have to wade through miles of lines that are changed
> according to the diff, just to find that it all is a couple of words
> that has moved from the end of one line to the start of the next for
> fifty lines, or so. It is also easier on the CVS system. It doesn't
> matter if the HTML code has short lines, it is reformatted before
> display anyway. (Actually, I tend to prefer putting a new-line after
> each sentence when I write HTML, since I change as little as possible
> when updating it, then).

I guess you're really protesting against my latest changes to
intro/why_debian.wml :)

It is my opinion that, just like the resulting document needs to be viewable
correctly even to the users that view it at very poor resolutions, the
source needs to be viewable (and editable) for the same people. Editing a
document with lines that wrap at column ~120 in a 80x25 terminal is quite
annoying.

Besides, it's known that humans have less ability to concentrate on reading
text written in very short and very long columns. 80 characters (sometimes
less) is a common limit for e-mail and most other e-documents[1], so why not
use it in our wmls? I'm also a translator so I know how it is for you, but
when the change is warranted, spending a few more minutes parsing the
original isn't such a big deal.

NB the installation manual sgml sources have lines wrapped at 70 and 75
characters, even.

[1] ugh, I seem to have picked up the "e-everything" fever ;)

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