Template talk:dcl list language

Wouldn't plain dcl list item fit better
I think linking to language features in a similar way as to library features is a bit confusing. Wouldn't something like the following look better?

-- P12 14:02, 27 April 2012 (PDT)


 * Whoops, sorry about the additions -- I didn't catch this comment until just now. So the reason I thought it would be useful to have summary templates for language features was just to avoid duplication.  This came up when I wanted to add a "see also" for the range-based for loop to .  Presumably there will be more situations where it would be useful to link to language features in "see also" lists, so I figured that templates would streamline things a bit.


 * Is your main concern that they appear too similar, visually? If having templates is useful, we might be able to address that concern by altering the appearance of the language features, e.g. making the little green "(language)" tag be blue (or something).  Thoughts? --Nate 19:40, 27 April 2012 (PDT)


 * Yes, my concern is primarily about formatting. There are actually two issues. The first one is about visual similarity. The second one is that there's less need to separate the name and the description of a feature as we do for functions, classes, etc. This is because the name of language features is in plain English and is inherently less precise. As opposed to that, the library features naturally have computer readable name and human readable description so it makes sense to separate the two as they serve two different purposes. Finally, I think we'll link to language features only in rare cases (there are, IIRC, only 10 see also links from library pages to language pages). Merging the description and the name should solve all these issues.


 * By the way, do you plan to use these templates in cpp/language? I think this would result in too much fancy formatting and reduce readability. cpp/links probably has this issue already, in my opinion a simple list would work better. I've opened a discussion at Talk:cpp/links to decide which format works better. -- P12 12:30, 28 April 2012 (PDT)


 * Yeah, that's exactly why I was thinking that adding the templates would be useful -- I didn't want to have duplicate descriptions of e.g. range-for at cpp/algorithm/for_each, cpp/language, and wherever we might potentially add range-for in the future. I definitely understand the dilemma of making this both visually appealing and easy-to-understand; let's figure that out over in Talk:cpp/links.  Visual elements aside, I don't quite understand the issue that you raise about the inherent difference between language features and functions/classes/etc, but perhaps I'm taking too simple a view on what templates are meant to be used for.  I was coming at this from a purely pragmatic angle: once something starts to appear in more than a single location, a template might be a good idea to keep the various versions in sync and up to date.  In that sense, there didn't seem to be a lot of difference between cpp/language/range-for and pages like cpp/algorithm/iter_swap -- both have a pretty small (but larger than one) number of pages that want to link to them in "see also" sections, and the templates make it easier to manage the information in a single place.  What do you think of that as a counter-argument?  :) --Nate 07:12, 29 April 2012 (PDT)


 * Hmm, I think you misunderstood me a bit. But it's me who's guilty for that as I've mixed at least two entirely different issues. I'll restate everything again.
 * The first issue is which of the following two ways we should use when referring to language features in see also lists. Most of my previous post was arguments why I prefer the first one.


 * The second question is whether we should use either of the above or bulleted list in cpp/links, cpp/language (and subpages) and c/language (and subpages). I prefer bulleted lists because it looks more readable to me. I've posted the full response at Talk:cpp/links.
 * I hope I explained my opinion more clearly. In particular, I see no problem with using templates, but I have reservations with using the same template everywhere. -- P12 13:10, 29 April 2012 (PDT)


 * Yeah, I think I'm confused. I wasn't advocating either of the two options you mentioned; I was advocating that on a page like cpp/algorithm/for_each we should be able to use a template like: