git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: [PATCH] doc: clarify "do not capitalize the first word" rule

From
Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date
Apr 15, 2021, 09:16 UTC
Message-ID
<YHgEVZ/vN5hEAgoQ@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To
<xmqq7dl4whl6.fsf@gitster.g>
On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 04:51:17PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
Show 20 quoted lines
> The same "do not capitalize the first word" rule is applied to both
> our patch titles and error messages, but the existing description
> was fuzzy in two aspects.
> 
>  * For error messages, it was not said that this was only about the
>    first word that begins the sentence.
> 
>  * For both, it was not clear when a capital letter there was not an
>    error.  We avoid capitalizing the first word when the only reason
>    you would capitalize it is because it happens to be the first
>    word in the sentence.  If a proper noun that is usually spelled
>    in caps happens to come at the beginning of the sentence, that is
>    not a reason to downcase it.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
> ---
> 
>  * I saw in the GGG inbox a well-intended patch that took the "do
>    not capitalize" rule too far, but with documentation unclear, it
>    was understandable, so here is to remedy the situation.

After reading the patch, I wouldn't have thought it needed to be spelled out, but if you saw a case in the wild, it doesn't hurt to be as clear as possible.

The patch text itself looks good to me.
-Peff
Previous: Junio C Hamano
Message 2 of 2 in “doc: clarify "do not capitalize the first word" rule”
  1. doc: clarify "do not capitalize the first word" ruleJunio C Hamano, Apr 14, 2021
  2. Jeff KingApr 15, 2021

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.