On Mar 11, 2010, at 4:41 AM, Florent Hivert wrote:
Hi
While you are at it,
To add a small epsilon to Minh's comments: it is fairly common for a
reviewer to add a small reviewer patch fixing docstrings or adding
some
examples, etc. This could be a good alternative to getting
frustrated
with the author for not making these changes himself. I have often
added such a patch, often as a sign of appreciation for the time and
effort the author made already; this is especially important when
the
person has indicated that he doesn't have time to pursue the
ticket any
further.
I believe however that authors should not expect this. I recently had
someone give me a positive review subject to some trivial grammar and
spelling errors. I have no problem with that. Why should the reviewer
correct my grammar or spelling?
One obvious exception would be if the grammar of someone is poor, as
English is not their first language. Then it is much more helpful
for the
reviewer to make a reviewer patch.
I don't known exactly how to solve it, but I'm sure there are
several non
native speaker (at least I can easily imagine two, I'm one of them)
which are
reviewing each other patch, and whose English is quite poor. So
probably, we
let huge English mistakes pass. In several occasion, I had wanted
someone to
reread a patch only for the English, but let it pass, mostly because
the show
must go on, and that I don't want do take other time...
I wouldn't hesitate to ask for a quick proofreading review if you
think one is warranted.
Anyway I'm even not sure that working on patch is a good way...
Indeed having
an overall view on the file is certainly much better. So my idea is
the
following (as you probably have guessed, I'm giving some more work
to other
people while I'm sure not to be qualified to do the job :-)):
What do you think about some more or less organized systematic
rereading of
the doc ? I mean make a ticket listing the file one by one marked
them as
reread by a native as things move on. Should this project have a low
priority ? I realize that adding doctests should be much more
important.
Any comment ?
I know that Minh has done an excellent job of this for large parts of
the Sage documentation already. Personally, though I'm a native
English speaker, I'm not that skilled of a proofreader. I don't think
anything systematic is needed, people can continue to contribute as
their skills and time allow.
- Robert
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