Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] Unification of user message strings

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:39:28 -0700

Vincent van Ravesteijn <[email-masked]> writes:

> From: Vincent van Ravesteijn <[email-masked]>
>
> Rewrite user messages to stick to a uniform style for all messages. From the surrounding code, the following guidelines were deduced:
> - messages start with a capital,
> - short messages do not end with a full stop,
> - paths, filenames, and commands are quoted by single quotes (if not separated by the normal text by a ':'),
> - 'could not' is used rather than 'cannot'.
>
> Signed-off-by: Vincent van Ravesteijn <[email-masked]>
> ---
>  gpg-interface.c |    6 +++---
>  grep.c          |    2 +-
>  help.c          |    2 +-
>  sequencer.c     |   24 ++++++++++++------------
>  4 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/gpg-interface.c b/gpg-interface.c
> index 09ab64a..5e14a21 100644
> --- a/gpg-interface.c
> +++ b/gpg-interface.c
> @@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ int sign_buffer(struct strbuf *buffer, struct strbuf *signature, const char *sig
>  	args[3] = NULL;
>  
>  	if (start_command(&gpg))
> -		return error(_("could not run gpg."));
> +		return error(_("Could not run 'gpg'"));

Ok with s/c/C/, but I am not sure about the 'gpg' bit.  The name of the
program and path to it can be configured so the user may be expecting to
run a program called gnupg, and unquoted gpg feels more like a generic
term to refer to the program.  It might be worth using all-CAPS, though.

Likewise for the other hunks for this file.

> -		return error(_("cannot open %s: %s"), filename,
> +		return error(_("Could not open '%s': %s"), filename,

Honestly speaking, I would personally prefer "Cannot open" over "Could not
open".  Yes, all the error messages report _after_ we attempted to do
something and finding that we _couldn't_ do that thing, so "Could not" may
be technically more correct, but still...

But that is probably just me.

Other than that, the patch looks good; let's hear from others, too.