Re: document bugs

[Daniel Goldman]

I think the poster is trying to improve the documentation. That is good. 
As Eric said, it could only be evaluated with a specific patch.

To my understanding, the post suggests replacing "while" with "wereas" 
somewhere. But "wereas" is not a word, nor (usually) a while synonym. :(

It seems that "despite of" or "in contrast of" are also suggested as 
alternatives to "while". However, "despite of" and "in contrast of" are 
*not* grammatically correct English. :( Nor are they anything close to a 
synonym for "while" or "until".

Take the sentence "While I was studying the m4 while command, my brain 
exploded." :) It would be difficult to replace "while" with a good 
equivalent. "As I was studying the m4 while command, my brain exploded" 
is close. The literal would be "During the time I was studying the m4 
while command, my brain exploded."

Or take "Until I studied the m4 until command, I was sane". :) The only 
alternative seems "Before the time I studied the m4 until command, I was 
sane".

IMO, the downside of the poster's good idea outweigh the upsides.

PS - The suggestion to expunge "while" and "until" from m4 docs (other 
than as a command) reminds me a bit of some "constrained" novels. In one 
example, "Gadsby" (not "The Great Gatsby"), no words containing the 
letter "e" were used. :) Pretty challenging! In another example, 
"Eunoia", each chapter only contains words with a single vowel. So there 
might be a sentence like "Hassan can, at a handclap, call a vassal at 
hand and ask that all staff plan a bacchanal". :)

Daniel

On 2/27/2019 7:09 AM, Eric Blake wrote:
> [I'm not sure why the original mail didn't seem to hit the list]
>
> On 2/26/19 1:34 PM, HaimMelamed wrote:
> > hello,
> > after reading, maybe its better to change words like "while" with "wereas"
> > or "despite of" or "in contrast of" ......
> > because the confusion of known operational commands like "ifelse" or
> > "forloop" or "while" or "until".
> > best regards
>
> Rather than a vague suggestion, it's easier to evaluate this if you can
> propose an actual patch (showing both the before and after of a sentence
> you find confusing without your rewording).
>
> "despite of" and "in contrast of" are not idiomatic English; while I
> don't mind helping you come up with grammar that matches a native
> speaker's expectations, it's hard to do that without having an actual
> sentence being changed, rather than just a couple of words from an
> unspecified sentence.