Re: [PATCH] gitweb: fix spelling errors in comments

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 27, 2009, 08:35 UTC
Message-ID: <20090927083507.GA25891@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <1254007953-1961-1-git-send-email-vmiklos@frugalware.org>

On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 01:32:33AM +0200, Miklos Vajna wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Signed-off-by: Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org>
> ---
>  gitweb/gitweb.perl |   10 +++++-----
>  1 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> 
> The plural form of "id" is "ids", not "id's", right?

It is a matter of some debate, actually. As an abbreviation, it should rightly be "ID", and therefore "IDs". Most style manuals indicate that no apostrophe should be used these days, unless it is an abbreviation separated by dots (e.g., "I.D.'s").

Some disagree, and some indicate that you should use an apostrophe where it may be visually more clear (for example, in single-letter abbreviations like "A's").

There is a nice summary of some style guides here:

  http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=499296

Honestly, for such an informal bit of text as a code comment, I'm not sure it is worth nit-picking the grammar (e.g., we should be writing SHA-1 everywhere, and we obviously don't). I'll let Shawn decide whether he wants to apply or not.

-Peff