Seeking Help with Windows Maxima installer localization

On 11/15/06, Richard Fateman <fateman at cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:

>  so Robert's objection [ugh] to the use of "you" in my earlier example is
> presumably a matter of some delicacy.   There is a philosophical notion, not
> worth pursuing, that anthropomorphizing a program is a bad idea (e.g.
> "Factor likes to return unsimplified answers such as 2*3^2".   Clearly
> programs do not have desires.  But other wordings take more room and are not
> as clear in some sense.)

The distinction we want to make, I believe, is between descriptive
texts and goal-oriented texts. The reference manual falls in the
former category and tutorials in the latter. The point of descriptive
texts is to give the reader information sufficient to deduce a course
of action to solve a particular problem. Goal-oriented texts show
particular examples of that.

"You can do X with the expand function" is less informative,
as a bit of a descriptive text, because it says nothing about
other capabilities. Even attempting to cover the bases with
"You can do X Y and Z with expand" doesn't solve the problem,
because it leaves open the possibility that there also exists A
which expand can do. "expand does X Y and Z" on the other hand
closes the door.

FWIW
Robert