TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
On my mention of the software environment, it's just that we tend to
spell compounds such as this one solid before that usage becomes more
widespread. Many terms currently in mixed usage (open, hyphenated,
solid) appear as one word in our doc. If I were working within a
more conservative environment (academia, for instance), I would
expect such terms, where there was overlap, to be treated
differently. Not to mention that the whole style of writing --
sentence structure, level of diction, and so on -- would differ. But
that's another kettle of fish.
I'm seeing "roundtrip" spelled solid as a noun or and adjective more
and more frequently in our environment. It seems to be coming
together into one word, as have many compounds before it. I was just
wondering whether it was time for our group to follow suit.
A few examples . . .
The entity object will use the Oracle SQL RETURNING INTO feature,
while performing the INSERT or UPDATE to return the modified column
back to your application in a single database roundtrip.
When you want to reduce the number of roundtrips the iterator
requires to fetch the data objects from the view object in the
Business Components layer, you can set the rangeSize attribute to -1,
and the objects will be fetched in a single roundtrip to the server,
rather than in multiple trips as the user navigates through the
objects.
RowSet allows the developer to set a desired page-size, for example
10 rows, and page up and down through the query results in these
page-sized chunks. Since data is retrieved lazily, only data the user
actually visits will ever be retrieved from the database on the
backend, and in the client tier the number of rows in the page can be
returned over the network in a single roundtrip.
______________
Punctuation is another element that bows, to some extent, to the
writing environment. In the U.S., journalists don't use the serial
comma, for instance, while those writing in an academic or technical
environment do. Brits often don't use a comma after an introductory
phrase or clause, while in the U.S. we do, particularly after a
clause.
Style and usage has some relationship to context.
Odile
At 7:47 PM +1000 6/23/08, Michael West wrote:
> > What would you do with this term as a noun in a software environment?
>
>> Closed, open, or hyphenated? If the open two-word form, you'd then
>
> > hyphenate it as an adjective preceding the noun it modifies?
>
>
>
>"Round trip" as an adjective-noun pair.
>
>"Round-trip" as a compound modifier.
>
>"Roundtrip" or "round-trip" as a verb.
>
>Pretty much the way English has been written by professional writers and
>editors for the past century or so.
>
>
>What does "a software environment" have to do with anything?
>
>--
>
>Mike West
>
>Melbourne, Australia
Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-