From: Jason McIntyre <jmc@kerhand.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Diff: Minor Improvement to Sentence
To: tech@openbsd.org
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2024 18:04:48 +0100

On Thu, Aug 08, 2024 at 10:51:15AM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> Jason McIntyre <jmc@kerhand.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Aug 08, 2024 at 09:03:30AM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> > >      clients.  It listens for IPv6 router advertisement messages, for example
> > >      those sent by rad(8), on interfaces with the AUTOCONF6 flag set.  slaacd
> > > 
> > > I'd flip the sentence around to state the dependent sitation first, and
> > > avoid the vague word "it".
> > > 
> > >     For interfaces with the AUTOCONF6 flag set, slaacd(8) listens for IPv6
> > >     router advertisement messages [...]
> > > 
> > 
> > i'd say it's better to say what it does first. that's its reason for
> > being. then qualify how/when later.
> 
> Well, I disagree.  The usual way to describe any decision leading to
> an operation is to use the form:
> 
>       IF condition, do OPERATION.
> 
> rather than:
> 
>        do OPERATION, IF condition.
> 

yes, i get that. this way, you are pushing first that this is only for
hosts with condition. for those hosts it does operation.

but i don;t know why you;d want to emphasize it that way round. the
whole nuts of it is that it's a way for clients to autoconfigure their
ip stuff. isn;t that the first thing you need to know? then how you go
about it, or for which devices it might be relevant.

jmc