Flag proposal

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 6/12/11 2:19 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Andrei Alexandrescu"<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org>  wrote in message
> news:it32j8$2gfq$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> On 6/12/11 1:45 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> "Andrei Alexandrescu"<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org>   wrote in message
>>> news:it1c0f$1uup$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>> On 06/11/2011 03:52 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>>>> "Andrei Alexandrescu"<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org>    wrote in message
>>>>> news:it07ni$1pvj$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyway, that was the first thing "grep yes std/*" found. Let's see the
>>>>>> next one:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> /**
>>>>>> Specifies whether the output of certain algorithm is desired in sorted
>>>>>> format.
>>>>>>     */
>>>>>> enum SortOutput {
>>>>>>        no,  /// Don't sort output
>>>>>>        yes, /// Sort output
>>>>>> }
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This already is very unpleasant because "certain" is as imprecise as
>>>>>> it
>>>>>> gets. Plus one for Flag, I hope you agree.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Flag -= 1
>>>>> s/output of certain algorithm/output of an algorithm/ += 1
>>>>>
>>>>> That one-word doc change makes it all perfectly clear.
>>>>
>>>> Not at all. The typo in the original text must have confused you: it
>>>> should be "certain algorithms" because SortOutput is used in four
>>>> distinct
>>>> algorithms (one of which has two overloads). Grep std/algorithm.d.
>>>>
>>>> Flag += 2
>>>>
>>>
>>> Not that I consider quibbling over small English wording differences a
>>> major
>>> thing, but I fail to see how:
>>>
>>> "Specifies whether the output of an algorithm is desired in sorted
>>> format."
>>>
>>> is significantly different from:
>>>
>>> "Specifies whether the output of certain algorithms are desired in sorted
>>> format."
>>>
>>> In either case, I don't see anything problematically imprecise.
>>
>> Still means I need to jump back and forth in the documentation.
>>
>
> And you don't like the "///ditto" suggestion for handling that?

That actually does help, but not for enums used by more than one 
function. The other issues remain too.

Andrei