Re: CVS commit: sharesrc/share/misc

[woods%weird.com@localhost (Greg A. Woods)]

[ On Tuesday, December 4, 2001 at 00:11:32 (+0200), Antti Kantee wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: CVS commit: sharesrc/share/misc
>
> On Tue Dec 04 2001 at 10:30:35 +1300, Gregory McGarry wrote:
> > Luke Mewburn wrote:
> >  
> > > Module Name:      sharesrc
> > > Committed By:     lukem
> > > Date:             Mon Dec  3 05:38:10 UTC 2001
> > > 
> > > Modified Files:
> > >   sharesrc/share/misc: acronyms
> > > 
> > > Log Message:
> > > add MMU, TLB. sort
> > 
> > Apparently these additions are not appropriate to this file.
> > IIRC, someone tried to add PCI to the list and was required
> > to back it out.  Has there been a change in policy on the
> > contents of this file that I missed?

'pci' was never added to share/misc/acronyms and then backed out, and it
appears nowhere in the acronyms,v file.

Perhaps you're thinking of this entry though:

----------------------------
revision 1.66
date: 2000/08/10 03:56:58;  author: hubertf;  state: Exp;  lines: +1 -2
Back out last entry (MCC).

It seems this file is intended for "things used often in personal
eletronic communication". (Where is my canonical list of smilies?)
----------------------------
revision 1.65
date: 2000/08/10 02:23:40;  author: hubertf;  state: Exp;  lines: +2 -1
MCC    Memory Credential Cache
----------------------------

> Well, the list does already contains KNF, but I must say, it has always
> looked a bit "out of place" in there. IMHO it should be taken out also.

I don't see the problem with having techie things in a file generically
named "acronyms", or any other classification of of acronyms for that
matter.

If the rule quoted in rev. 1.66's commit message is to be upheld then
I'd strongly suggest the file be renamed to something a little less
misleading (eg. "wtf-acronyms" :-).

I suppose some people might question the sanity of having an OS group
maintain a list of generic acronyms, or even a list of "things used
often in personal electronic communication", but someone has to do it.
(not that there's a shortage of on-line acronym databases and search
engines, of course)

I note there's nothing in the wtf(6) manual page mentioning restrictions
on the default database's content either (other than by the fact it
appears in chapter 6, I suppose).  Note also that by default wtf will
punt to whatis if it can't find a match in the default (or specified)
acronym database, and almost everything whatis will find is definitely
techie in nature.

$ wtf is pci
pci: pci (4) - introduction to machine-independent PCI bus support and drivers

(which unfortunately leads one on a wild goose chase since as far as I
can tell the "PCI" acronym isn't defined in pci(4) either!)

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

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