Elements of Style and the documentation-guide

[Paul W. Frields]

On Sun, 2004-07-04 at 05:55, Telsa Gwynne wrote:
[...snip...]
> http://developer.gnome.org/documents/style-guide/locale-5.html
> 
> There are twenty topics covered there, with rules, exceptions,
> bad examples and rewritten sentences. They range from some which
> are good practice in any technical documentation to others which
> look surprising unless you are familiar with how other languages
> say things. 
[...snip...]

Excellent points all, and thank you for the link. This guide mentions a
lot of ways to correct the poor style that afflicts a lot of Linux
documentation on the Web. I glanced over the GNOME guide and found
references to a number of peeves which it is designed to prevent. I
don't see an easy way of including its contents other than in whole
(which is not a problem given that it is licensed under the GFDL), but
since they're very complete in their current form that might be the most
advisable strategy. Perhaps this calls for a "part" organization in a
more comprehensive Fedora Style Guide, which might wrap up several other
guides such as the GNOME guide you mention.

I picked EoS mostly due to its copyright status in the U.S., and, I have
to admit, my personal feelings for the book. There didn't seem to be
much in it which would be odious to anyone, but certainly it's still
merely a "guide," not "law." :-)

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE