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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/CodingGuidelines')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/CodingGuidelines | 57 |
1 files changed, 56 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines index 45465bc0c9..711cb9171e 100644 --- a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines +++ b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines @@ -175,6 +175,11 @@ For shell scripts specifically (not exhaustive): does not have such a problem. + - Even though "local" is not part of POSIX, we make heavy use of it + in our test suite. We do not use it in scripted Porcelains, and + hopefully nobody starts using "local" before they are reimplemented + in C ;-) + For C programs: @@ -498,7 +503,12 @@ Error Messages - Do not end error messages with a full stop. - - Do not capitalize ("unable to open %s", not "Unable to open %s") + - Do not capitalize the first word, only because it is the first word + in the message ("unable to open %s", not "Unable to open %s"). But + "SHA-3 not supported" is fine, because the reason the first word is + capitalized is not because it is at the beginning of the sentence, + but because the word would be spelled in capital letters even when + it appeared in the middle of the sentence. - Say what the error is first ("cannot open %s", not "%s: cannot open") @@ -541,6 +551,51 @@ Writing Documentation: documentation, please see the documentation-related advice in the Documentation/SubmittingPatches file). + In order to ensure the documentation is inclusive, avoid assuming + that an unspecified example person is male or female, and think + twice before using "he", "him", "she", or "her". Here are some + tips to avoid use of gendered pronouns: + + - Prefer succinctness and matter-of-factly describing functionality + in the abstract. E.g. + + --short:: Emit output in the short-format. + + and avoid something like these overly verbose alternatives: + + --short:: Use this to emit output in the short-format. + --short:: You can use this to get output in the short-format. + --short:: A user who prefers shorter output could.... + --short:: Should a person and/or program want shorter output, he + she/they/it can... + + This practice often eliminates the need to involve human actors in + your description, but it is a good practice regardless of the + avoidance of gendered pronouns. + + - When it becomes awkward to stick to this style, prefer "you" when + addressing the the hypothetical user, and possibly "we" when + discussing how the program might react to the user. E.g. + + You can use this option instead of --xyz, but we might remove + support for it in future versions. + + while keeping in mind that you can probably be less verbose, e.g. + + Use this instead of --xyz. This option might be removed in future + versions. + + - If you still need to refer to an example person that is + third-person singular, you may resort to "singular they" to avoid + "he/she/him/her", e.g. + + A contributor asks their upstream to pull from them. + + Note that this sounds ungrammatical and unnatural to those who + learned that "they" is only used for third-person plural, e.g. + those who learn English as a second language in some parts of the + world. + Every user-visible change should be reflected in the documentation. The same general rule as for code applies -- imitate the existing conventions. |