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From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
To: Kaartic Sivaraam <kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com>
Cc: Shourya Shukla <shouryashukla.oo@gmail.com>,
	Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>,
	christian.couder@gmail.com, liu.denton@gmail.com,
	git@vger.kernel.org, congdanhqx@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] submodule: port subcommand 'set-branch' from shell to C
Date: Wed, 20 May 2020 07:37:38 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqqd06yy8nh.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <b96324d4-04bd-8f64-e334-d3613dc3be6f@gmail.com> (Kaartic Sivaraam's message of "Wed, 20 May 2020 18:42:48 +0530")

Kaartic Sivaraam <kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Shourya,
>
> On 20-05-2020 17:45, Shourya Shukla wrote:
>> On 19/05 02:57, Eric Sunshine wrote:
>>> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 2:27 PM Shourya Shukla
>>> <shouryashukla.oo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> +       if (opt_branch && opt_default)
>>>> +               die(_("--branch and --default do not make sense together"));
>>>
>>> A more precise way to say this is:
>>>
>>>      die(_("--branch and --default are mutually exclusive"));
>>
>> Will that be clear to everyone? What I mean is maybe a person from a
>> non-mathematical background (someone doing programming as a hobby maybe)
>> will not grasp at this at one go and will have to search it's meaning
>> online. Isn't it fine as-is?
>>
>
> While "mutually exclusive" might be prominently used in mathematics. I
> don't think it is only understandable by people with a mathematical
> background.
>
> Moreover, I see 183 results in 36 files for "mutually exclusive" in
> git.git (including translation files). So, this isn't anything new.
>
> I agree with Eric's suggestion. It makes the error message concise
> which is a nice side benefit.

Sure.  

But "do not make sense together" is forcing the reader to infer the
implication "... hence cannot use at the same time", so it is one
step detached from what we really want them to know, while giving
half an explanation (it still invites "why don't they make sense
together?") so why not say that conclusion more directly?  i.e.
"... cannot be used together"?  Either way those who need to be told
more would ask "why can't I use them together?" anyway, so half an
explanation would not help all that much.



  reply	other threads:[~2020-05-20 14:37 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-05-19 18:26 [PATCH v2] submodule: port subcommand 'set-branch' from shell to C Shourya Shukla
2020-05-19 18:57 ` Eric Sunshine
2020-05-20 12:15   ` Shourya Shukla
2020-05-20 13:12     ` Kaartic Sivaraam
2020-05-20 14:37       ` Junio C Hamano [this message]
2020-05-20 14:45     ` Eric Sunshine

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