[Pmwiki-users] Reflection on link syntax

John Rankin john.rankin
Wed Jun 30 15:52:22 CDT 2004


On Wednesday, 30 June 2004 11:53 PM, Christian Ridderstr?m <chr at home.se> wrote:
>Hi
>
>I was just adding some links to a wiki page with lots of external links.  
>Some of the URIs were already in there in the text and I just had to move
>them, while others I inserted by pasting. What I noticed was that I
>sometimes instinctively wanted to write
>
>	[[The PmWiki web site http://www.pmwiki.org]]
>
>rather than using the current syntax:
>
>	[[http://www.pmwiki.org The PmWiki web site]]
>
...
>
>Has anyone else noticed something like this? I.e. that they'd prefer 
>writing the link text first? (I've noticed this before, but this was the 
>first time I started reflecting on *why* I felt like this)

It may depend on one's language. In English, we are often taught to 
'say the most important thing first' -- sometimes called the inverted
pyramid writing style. The text is more important to both writer and
reader than the address, so it's more natural to put it first.

I think some languages are structured differently.

And while I too prefer [[text link]], it may be one of those times 
when it's more important to be in step (with other wiki's conventions) 
than to be right. Sigh.

On a related topic, I have felt the same way about style information:
I find it more natural to describe style after the text, not before.

>
>/Christian
>

-- 
JR
--
John Rankin





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