[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [PATCH] more small directional cleanups

[Trent Piepho <xyzzy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Raimar Falke wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 02:05:35AM -0700, Trent Piepho wrote:
> > Yes, I think is_normal_pos and is_real_pos are better names too.  But
> > is_real_tile and some other is_x_tile functions already exist, so I thought
> > consistency was more important.
> 
> IMHO not for long term maintainability.

Well if you want to change them all to _pos, go ahead.  I didn't think it was
worth the effort for what is really a minor difference.

> However, in technical usage when we say that something is
> "normalised", we do not mean to say that it is "plain and
> unsurprising".  What we mean is that the object has been replaced by
> one with a convenient and / or pleasing _representation_, not that the

He's saying the same thing I was, and the same thing the dictionary says.
"normalized" means something has been changed so that it is normal.

> > If you use normalized instead of normal you are saying that the
> > position was, at one time, _not_ normal, and then was made so.  If
> > the position was normal all along, then it was never normalized.
> 
> So I change it to "is_now_normalized_a_position" but this gets a bit
> to long.

The sentence, "Is this normal?" is perfectly acceptable.  The sentence, "Is
this normalized?" is not correct.  It should be, "Was this normalized?" And to
answer the latter question, I could respond, "No, it was normal to begin
with."

Or replace normal with a more common word to make it clearer.

normal ~= dead       (both adjectives)
normalize ~= kill    (both verbs, which make the adjective true)
normalized ~= killed (both past particple forms of the verb)

It is normalized.  He is killed.         BAD!
It was normalized.  He was killed.       OK
It is normal.   He is dead.              BETTER