So in https://github.com/nim-lang/Nim/pull/15747 the author changed a lot of British spellings into American ones, and I'm wondering if we generally should follow British or American word spellings in the documentation?
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One of the arguments for American English that I can think of: it's much more popular (especially in programming communities).
But I'm for British English ;)
Problem is that most of the code already uses American English:
$ grep --include \*.nim -ri "initialize" | wc -l
323
$ grep --include \*.nim -ri "initialise" | wc -l
21
$ grep --include \*.nim -ri "color" | wc -l
2177
$ grep --include \*.nim -ri "colour" | wc -l
2
Curiously we also have things like this tools/nimgrep.nim:43: --nocolor output will be given without any colours. To be honest I'm fine with documentation being written in either style, even though I personally prefer British English, and I don't really mind a mix. But I'd imagine that native speakers might find it a bit more noticeable that there are different styles.
@PMunch
But I'd imagine that native speakers might find it a bit more noticeable that there are different styles.
I'm not a native English speaker, but nevertheless when I come across British spelling it sticks out.
@drkameleon
I think software and programming are - for better or for worse - intimately-connected with American English.
I fully agree. My impression is that 95 % of the English documentation I see uses American English spelling.
Given that and that by far most of the Nim documentation already uses American spelling, I think we should stick to this for consistency. In this sense, PRs for spelling changes would be fine, and I don't think there needs to be another change in a PR to justify the spelling change.
But sounds like it
it doesnt