Re: [PATCH v3 4/4] maintenance: optionally use systemd timers on Linux

brian m. carlson wrote:

On 2021-05-23 at 18:36:10, Felipe Contreras wrote:

quoted

Johannes Schindelin wrote:

quoted

On Fri, 21 May 2021, Derrick Stolee wrote:

quoted

On 5/21/2021 5:59 AM, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:

quoted

On 21/05/21 05.13, Lénaïc Huard wrote:

quoted

The existing mechanism for scheduling background maintenance is done
through cron. On Linux systems managed by systemd, systemd provides an
alternative to schedule recurring tasks: systemd timers.

The main motivations to implement systemd timers in addition to cron
are:
* cron is optional and Linux systems running systemd might not have it
   installed.
* The execution of `crontab -l` can tell us if cron is installed but not
   if the daemon is actually running.
* With systemd, each service is run in its own cgroup and its logs are
   tagged by the service inside journald. With cron, all scheduled tasks
   are running in the cron daemon cgroup and all the logs of the
   user-scheduled tasks are pretended to belong to the system cron
   service.
   Concretely, a user that doesn’t have access to the system logs won’t
   have access to the log of its own tasks scheduled by cron whereas he
   will have access to the log of its own tasks scheduled by systemd
   timer.

For gender neutrality, we can use he/she instead.

Singular "they" is better. Fully accurate and less awkward.

I agree.

I disagree.

I'm fully in support of singular "they".

To each her/his own.

It provides a useful pronoun to use in this context, is widely
understood and used, is less awkward than "he/she," and is less sexist
than the indefinite "he."

I disagree. But I wouldn't presume to dictate how other people speak.

If you like it, use it.

quoted

quoted

If the singular they was good enough for Shakespeare,

Shakespeare:

 1. Did not know gammar
 2. Invented words as we went along
 3. Was no writing prose

The point is that it has been used by native English speakers as part of
the language for over half a millennium and is widely used and
understood.

A similar thing happens with the word "nucular" [1]; it is used by
native English speakers as part of the language for many decades and is
widely used and understood.

Does that mean it's a valid word? Maybe.

But does that make "nuclear" invalid? No.

You can use "nucular" if you want (many people do). I will use
"nuclear".

Both can be valid.

This usage is specified in Merriam Webster[0]:

Merriam-Webster is not infallible.

But fine: let's say they are correct.

Where does it say "they" is *better*? Or worse: where does it say
"his/her" is discouraged?

quoted

The singular they is a controversial topic[1][2], even among linguists.
This is a software project, we must not make decrees about proper use of
English language, especially when linguists themselves have not yet
fully decided.

Linguists fit roughly into two camps: prescriptive and descriptive.

I am perfectly aware of the two camps, and I have written about it.

While I am not a linguist, I have a B.A. in English, and my views fit
firmly into the descriptivist camp.

If you are a descriptivist (as am I), then you must acknowledge that
people use "his/her" *today*.

As a descriptivist you shouldn't dare to _prescribe_ how people use words.

Therefore, if I use "his/her" (as many people do), you should not
prescribe otherwise.

Since we are writing text for an English language audience who are
mostly not linguists, we should probably consider using the language
that most people will use in this context.

Consider, yes. Dictate? No.

And you don't know how *most* most people speak. Your guess is as good
as mine.

It's completely fine for a contributor to propose that they think an
idea is better provided that they do so in a respectful and considerate
way, which I think happened here.

If you say you think **in your personal opinion** that A is better than
B, that's fine.

What was stated here was "A is better". So that's not what happened.

I think it should be fine to use singular they here.  You are, of
course, free to feel differently.

I do feel differently, but I would not presume to dictate that B is
better; I argue both A and B are fine.

 A. he/she
 B. they


To be perfectly clear; I'm not saying you shouldn't use B; I'm saying A
is fine.

Cheers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular

-- 
Felipe Contreras