From: Wietse Venema (wietseporcupine.org)
Date: Tue Jul 13 2004 - 14:37:57 CDT

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

James Garrison:
>
>
> Wietse Venema wrote:
>
> > James Garrison:
> >
> >>Wietse Venema wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>What exactly is not clear of the following two words:
> >>>
> >>> instead of
> >>>
> >>
> >>The full context is "instead of requiring", which can be read as
> >>
> >>1) With parent_domain_matches_subdomains set, you are
> >> no longer required to provide a leading dot.
> >>
> >>OR
> >>
> >>2) With parent_domain_matches_subdomains set, you
> >> MUST NOT provide a leading dot.
> >>
> >>Either interpretation is correct without more explicit
> >>information.
> >
> >
> > X "instead of" Y implies EXCLUSION, not CO-EXISTENCE.
> >
> > This machine boots BSD instead of Windows.
> >
> > War instead of peace.
> >
> > Freedom instead of slavery.
> >
> > Wietse
> >
>
> Please don't take this personally. All the examples you quote
> are correct, but when you say "instead of requiring" there
> are two possible interpretations, both equally valid:
>
> required/optional
>
> required/forbidden
>
> It is not clear which of these is implied in the documentation.
> I assumed the first, and Postfix implements the latter.
> Won't you at least consider the possibility that this might
> be ambiguous?

Sorry, "instead of" implies exclusion. This is no harder than the
difference between it's (it is) and its (possessive form).

I'll look into this the next time I make a dumbing down pass over
the documentation.

        Wietse

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]