Re: [virtio-dev] Re: [virtio] [PATCH] intro: add advice on transition from legacy interfaces

["Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>]

On Thu, Jul 02, 2015 at 03:11:42PM +0000, James Bottomley wrote:
> On Thu, 2015-07-02 at 15:04 +0200, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > 
> > On 02/07/2015 13:17, James Bottomley wrote:
> > >> > I prefer Michael's version for this sentence.  English strongly prefers
> > >> > simpler sentences, or so I was explained by native speakers.  This is
> > >> > unlike Italian, and my high school experience dealing with Kant suggests
> > >> > that German is similar. :)
> > > That's not true at all ... English prose strongly prefers complex
> > > sentences with subclauses to get nuanced descriptions; the heyday of
> > > this was the 18-19 century: Dickens and Jane Austen have sentences that
> > > go on for pages. That said, this is a specification, not a novel, so
> > > specs like clarity and simplicity (in any language).
> > 
> > I wish this was the case for the few Italian technical documents I've
> > had the pleasure to read. :)
> 
> I was expounding the ideal not the sad reality ...
> 
> > > I'd still say
> > > 
> > >         In this case the reader might like to focus on sections tagged
> > >         "Legacy Interface" in the section title which highlight the
> > >         changes made since these earlier drafts.
> > >         
> > > Because it's a single thought unit.  Sentence structure should follow
> > > the layout of the ideas.
> > 
> > I think this last paragraph is interesting.  You didn't write "Because
> > it's a single thought unit, and sentence structure should follow the
> > layout of the ideas".
> 
> Actually those are two separate thought units.  I could make the second
> sentence a subclause of the first if I wanted to because it could be
> made an expansion of the previous though unit; however, it also stands
> on its own as a statement, hence the new sentence (but either way is
> correct). The comma before the conjunction, by the way, is illegal in
> English but acceptable in American.
> 
> > But after all this is bikeshedding, and we all know...
> 
> It should be red.
> 
> James


I think I like the way James' wrote it better but for a different
reason - the way I wrote it, these was repeated twice.
Cornelia suggested replacing "these" by "the" and I did this in v2
but it's more repetitious and less explicit.

> 
> > Paolo
> > 
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> 
>