"Conflict discovered" vs "Conflicts discovered"

Obligatory reference: http://beige.bikeshed.com/

Our new interactive conflict thingy prompts once for each conflicted
file, no matter how many conflicts are in that file. But the message
(in English) always uses the singular:

   Conflict discovered in 'iota'.
   Select: (p)ostpone, (d)iff, (e)dit, (h)elp :

This fooled me at first, because in programming, we don't usually use
conflict as a mass noun. A country in a civil war is undergoing
"conflict", to be sure, but when I update my file I get "a conflict"
or "multiple conflicts" :-). Using the singular implies that there
was exactly one conflict (although note that the plural does not
necessarily imply the opposite). If Subversion uses the singlular,
then after you resolve the first conflict you see, you might not think
to look further in the file for later conflicts.

So, I suggest we simply add an "s":

   Conflicts discovered in 'iota'.
   Select: (p)ostpone, (d)iff, (e)dit, (h)elp :

That still works for the single-conflict case (note that people often
say "we've got conflicts" even when there's just one conflicting
hunk), and it's much better for the multiple-conflicts case.

Any objections if I make this change?

-Karl

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Received on Sat Aug 18 03:12:05 2007