Re: The may/can/might business - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: The may/can/might business
Date
Msg-id 200702012043.l11Kh4720805@momjian.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to The may/can/might business  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
Responses Re: The may/can/might business  (Richard Troy <rtroy@ScienceTools.com>)
Re: The may/can/might business  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
List pgsql-hackers
Tom Lane wrote:
> 3606c3606
> <                    errmsg("aggregate function calls cannot be nested")));
> ---
> >                    errmsg("aggregate function calls may not be nested")));
> 
> I don't think that this is an improvement, or even correct English.
> 
> You have changed a message that states that an action is logically
> impossible into one that implies we are arbitrarily refusing to let
> the user do something that *could* be done, if only we'd let him.
> 
> There is relevant material in the message style guidelines, section
> 45.3.8: it says that "cannot open file "%s" ... indicates that the
> functionality of opening the named file does not exist at all in the
> program, or that it's conceptually impossible."

Uh, I think you might be reading the diff backwards.  The current CVS
wording is "cannot".

--  Bruce Momjian   bruce@momjian.us EnterpriseDB    http://www.enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


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