On 02/07/2015 13:17, James Bottomley wrote:
>> > I prefer Michael's version for this sentence. English strongly prefers
>> > simpler sentences, or so I was explained by native speakers. This is
>> > unlike Italian, and my high school experience dealing with Kant suggests
>> > that German is similar. :)
> That's not true at all ... English prose strongly prefers complex
> sentences with subclauses to get nuanced descriptions; the heyday of
> this was the 18-19 century: Dickens and Jane Austen have sentences that
> go on for pages. That said, this is a specification, not a novel, so
> specs like clarity and simplicity (in any language).
I wish this was the case for the few Italian technical documents I've
had the pleasure to read. :)
> I'd still say
>
> In this case the reader might like to focus on sections tagged
> "Legacy Interface" in the section title which highlight the
> changes made since these earlier drafts.
>
> Because it's a single thought unit. Sentence structure should follow
> the layout of the ideas.
I think this last paragraph is interesting. You didn't write "Because
it's a single thought unit, and sentence structure should follow the
layout of the ideas".
But after all this is bikeshedding, and we all know...
Paolo
