Re: the guide for contributors, or the guide for a contributor?

[Graham Percival]

On Tue, Dec 08, 2009 at 09:54:45PM +0100, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> 
> >> BTW, may I remind to have TWO spaces after a full stop, exclamation
> >> mark and question mark at the end of a sentence.
> >
> > That is the practice I recall from my time typing others doctoral
> > thesi.  Sadly it is not the norm for html or many modern
> > text-setting applications which ruthlessly trim spaces they deem
> > superfluous.  I have even seen its use flagged as an error in some
> > cases.
> 
> Note that I'm only talking about text *input* (i.e., the data within
> the documentation source files).  In general, it has nothing to do how
> text is output.

Yes.

This is listed in CG x.y Text formatting (doc), and CG z.w Code
style... Localization (programming).  I'll admit that the latter
reference could be easier to find, but the whole CG programming
chapter could use a redesign, but that's not a priority.

The question then becomes "should we reject any patch that doesn't
have two spaces"... I'm less certain about this.  Face it: there
are *huge* hurdles for new contributors.  I reluctantly accept
that most of them are unavoidable, at least pending anybody
working on the code formatting tool, the git gui, and the new
build system.

I'd propose that we leave the "reject for one-space after period"
notation up to individual mentors.  If your protege seems really
fed up, then just accept the patch.  If everything is going well,
then start being pickier and reject such patches.

Cheers,
- Graham