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Re: PATCH to CPAN.pm: some code, mostly doc

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From:
Tom Christiansen
Date:
November 24, 2008 11:05
Subject:
Re: PATCH to CPAN.pm: some code, mostly doc
Message ID:
14376.1227553501@chthon
On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:44:55 +0100 "H.Merijn Brand" wrote:

>>> I spot checked many of them and they looked good -- but it was too
>>> much to read through every single one. That was a big job.  Thank
>>> you very much.

>> You're most welcome. 

> Note that Andreas is not a native English speaker (and neither am I). I
> also try to use spell checkers with my modules - for the documentation
> that is), but those do not always catch what is obvious for all of you.

I'm aware that you and Andreas aren't native English speakers.  You'll
notice I made no complaint (well, defered, but HTTP_REFERER still sticks in
my craw, and that was done by native speakers).  Instead, I just tried to
help.  I'm *highly* sympathethic toward anyone writing in something other 
than their own lingua mater.  See sig.

> I really appreciate peering eyes like yours to `fix' what we don't see

My formal studies of German didn't even last a full year, and I've never
formally studied Dutch.  In fact, the only German I can readily quote comes
from Brahms's _Deutsches Requiem_, the title of which using a genitive case
still common in English but rarer in spoken German.  I find many non-native
speakers (and some native ones) writing "the X of Y" instead of "Y's X",
which is sometimes more "natural".  I can't give a firm rule.  It's an
ear-thing.  Also, the German conjunctive doesn't exactly correspond to the
English conditional or subjunctive.  French is a better match, but even
that is a bit off.  So I find German speakers making mood/mode errors
related to this.  German does have the nice distinction between "if" and
"whether", which is why I was surprised to see Andreas use so many "if"s
when I would have varied it, or clarified it, with "whether" from time to
time--so I did.

> On a related topic, I noticed in your patch:
> --8<---
> @@ -4541,7 +4541,7 @@
>              $CPAN::Frontend->myprint(
>                                       qq[
>  Trying with "$funkyftp$src_switch" to get
> -    $url
> +    "$url"
>  ]);
>              my($system) =
>                  "$chdir$funkyftp$src_switch \"$url\" $devnull$stdout_redir";
> @@ -4591,7 +4591,7 @@
>                  $CPAN::Frontend->myprint(
>                                          qq[
>      Trying with "$funkyftp$src_switch" to get
> -    $url.gz
> +    "$url.gz"
>      ]);
>                  my($system) = "$funkyftp$src_switch \"$url.gz\" $devnul<SNIP>
>                  $self->debug("system[$system]") if $CPAN::DEBUG;
> @@ -4732,7 +4732,7 @@
>                  }
>                  $CPAN::Frontend->myprint(qq{
>    Trying with external ftp to get
> -    $url
> +    '$url'
>    $netrc_explain
>    Going to send the dialog
>  $dialog
->->8---
 
> Did you deliberately choose a different quoting style in the
> third chunk?

Not really; the first two chunks were guided by the precedent of using
double quotes in other parts of their strings.  I didn't dig into
$netrc_explain to see whether it contained one quote or another, but
probably should have.

--tom
-- 

   "My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's
    concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammelled,
    rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of
    English, devoid of any of those apparatuses--the baffling mirror, the
    black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions--which
    the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to
    transcend the heritage in his own way."

                        --Vladimir Nabokov [1899-1977], the final sentence
                          in his essay (turned Afterword) re _Lolita_


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