Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
-
Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham I reckon that "column" in the sense of "number of characters" is a fossil usage in phrases like "80-column text" (and for old computer people such as us, too :)); pretty much everything that involves _setting_ that number calls it "width" or similar (--width as an option).
Newspaper-style columns I'd call --columns or --column-count; most people would, I think, not be confused by this and think that it's about character width. But since some might (you, for a start), --column-count. -
Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham I'd probably use something like
--widthfor character columns and--columnsfor newspaper-columns, but would also print a warning if their values seem too high (80 newspaper-columns) or too low (3 character-columns). -
Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham text columns vs character columns?
-
@simontatham text columns vs character columns?
@cunobaros maybe, but I can still imagine "text columns" being ambiguous.
Perhaps I should have been clearer in the original post (but I didn't want to make it too long): one situation I have in mind is that a user hasn't yet noticed that there _are_ two options, because they read the help as far as one of them and then stopped before seeing the other one.
If a user is already thinking "I want 132-column text", and they see that the help offers them --text-columns, then that fits with the words already in their head and they're liable to say "aha, --text-columns=132" before looking further.
There are lots of pairs of words that you can easily tell apart once you notice that both of them exist in the first place. But I want both options to have names unambiguous enough that even if you see one of them on its own, you can't mistake it for the other meaning.
-
@Scmbradley that's the easier one. But the other one needs a rename too, because if you have --columns and --width, then a user who sees both options can figure out which is which, but if they only read as far as --columns in the first place, they can leap to the wrong conclusion about what it means.
_Both_ options want to have names that make it obvious that they're not the other one.
@simontatham I wonder how much of what you want to do you are actually able to do with JUST clever names for these flags. Like the man page for each flag should highlight the existence of the other, and maybe that's enough?
-
Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham "Columns of text" and "Characters per line".
Not sure how you'd fit those into short long options, though. (--cpl for the latter, maybe, but it's non-obvious).
-
@simontatham "Columns of text" and "Characters per line".
Not sure how you'd fit those into short long options, though. (--cpl for the latter, maybe, but it's non-obvious).
@darkling --cpl is actually what I already have for that option name!
Being non-obvious isn't so bad if the aim is to avoid the user mistaking it for the other thing, because if it's not obvious what it means at all, they _know_ they need to read the help more carefully.
The other one, alas, is the hard one.
-
Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham vertical layout divisions? nope, nothing concise.
-
Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham "columns of text" and "width"
-
Terminology: what are good unambiguous names for the two senses of the word "column", when printing text in a monospaced font?
If someone says "2 columns" or "3 columns", they mean it in the sense that a newspaper is laid out in multiple columns – you read to the bottom of the first column before starting from the top of the next.
But if they say "80 columns" or "132 columns", they mean the number of monospaced character cells that fit across one line of text _within_ one of those columns.
If you need, for example, a command-line option for each of these, and you don't want to call either option '--columns' because that's ambiguous, what _do_ you call each one?
Particularly the first one (2 or 3 columns). I haven't come up with any good description for it that doesn't involve a definition by negatives. "Number of columns, no, not in that sense, the other sense."
@simontatham the layout terms “boxes” and “blocks” could possibly be repurposed for the complicated case (layout verticals). Technically not quite the same thing (neither requires full top to bottom).
To the best of my knowledge publishing (typography) normally uses “columns” for the layout purpose (not the width purpose), and just ignores the width meaning (since it is “whatever fits with given font / weight”).
TeX used boxes as terminology in that context (\hbox and \vbox).
-
@simontatham the layout terms “boxes” and “blocks” could possibly be repurposed for the complicated case (layout verticals). Technically not quite the same thing (neither requires full top to bottom).
To the best of my knowledge publishing (typography) normally uses “columns” for the layout purpose (not the width purpose), and just ignores the width meaning (since it is “whatever fits with given font / weight”).
TeX used boxes as terminology in that context (\hbox and \vbox).
@ewenmcneill yes, I agree that Srs Typographers just say "columns" without worrying about the ambiguity. And rightly so, because in their situation, there _isn't_ an ambiguity – they're not using a monospaced font, so the other meaning of "columns" isn't even meaningful! I'm sure that's part of the problem, and the reason why there isn't already a well-established unambiguous pair of terms.
-
@simontatham the layout terms “boxes” and “blocks” could possibly be repurposed for the complicated case (layout verticals). Technically not quite the same thing (neither requires full top to bottom).
To the best of my knowledge publishing (typography) normally uses “columns” for the layout purpose (not the width purpose), and just ignores the width meaning (since it is “whatever fits with given font / weight”).
TeX used boxes as terminology in that context (\hbox and \vbox).
@simontatham in case it helps looks like CSS settled on:
column-count
column-widthFor those attributes in its multi column layout. Which is verbose, but at least obvious.
-
@simontatham in case it helps looks like CSS settled on:
column-count
column-widthFor those attributes in its multi column layout. Which is verbose, but at least obvious.
@ewenmcneill ah, thank you! At least two other people have suggested those names, but I think you're the first to mention that they're already established in an existing context. That does make a difference.
-
@ewenmcneill ah, thank you! At least two other people have suggested those names, but I think you're the first to mention that they're already established in an existing context. That does make a difference.
@simontatham CSS also cheated and made “columns” a “multi value with magical defaults” property that takes either or both of count and width. (As best I can tell using a scaling value like “rem” to detect it is width.)
But… that’s probably undesirable in a command line
columns CSS property - CSS | MDN
The columns CSS shorthand property sets the maximum number of columns to use when drawing an element's contents, along with the minimum width and maximum height of the element's columns.
MDN Web Docs (developer.mozilla.org)
-
@baz --2columns=4 # looks silly but I suppose YKWIM
-
@baz but I don't want to make a rule about the maximum number of columns you can possibly have! Someone somewhere will have a very narrow text file and an A0 printer and violate my assumptions.
-
@ewenmcneill ah, thank you! At least two other people have suggested those names, but I think you're the first to mention that they're already established in an existing context. That does make a difference.
@simontatham @ewenmcneill Both column(1) and Python’s textwrap agree that `width' is the number of characters.
-
R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
