Re: [PATCH v2 4/9] doc: use only hyphens as word separators in placeholders

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 1, 2021, 06:47 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqmtmocqz4.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <2803948.JoDkH9avOM@cayenne>

Jean-Noël AVILA <jn.avila@free.fr> writes:

Show 11 quoted lines

> The choices here may be awkward; no problem to propose even more descriptive 
> names.
>
>> 
>>   Similarly "the 'format:<format-string>' format" feels highly
>>   redundant, I expect the reader knows that <string> contains a format
>>   inside it as it's mentioned immediately before *and* after.
>> 
>
> The fact that it is a string doesn't tell you much about what you can do with 
> it. For me, this isn't a problem that the explanation is redundant.

I agree that --format:<string> is quite poor, as type alone does not give readers any information on what it means and how it is supposed to look like. Calling it <format-string> does make quite a lot of sense.

It is a bit less obvious how much value we get out of <bool-value>, though. In --opt=<arg> scheme of things, what comes after '=' are all <value>s, so <bool-value> does not clarify over <bool> like the way <format-string> clarifies over <string>.