GNU bug report logs - #12530
nice(1) man page, bad wording

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From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: "Voelker, Bernhard" <bernhard.voelker <at> siemens-enterprise.com>
Cc: David Diggles <david.diggles <at> dnrm.qld.gov.au>, "12530-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <12530 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: bug#12530: nice(1) man page, bad wording
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:25:31 +0100

On 09/28/2012 02:25 PM, Voelker, Bernhard wrote:
> David Diggles wrote (Friday, September 28, 2012 4:45 AM)
>
>> DESCRIPTION
>>         Run  COMMAND  with an adjusted niceness, which affects process
>> scheduling.  With no COMMAND, print the current niceness.  Nicenesses
>> range from -20
>>         (most favorable scheduling) to 19 (least favorable).
>>
>> Favorable to what?  It really does not explain, since it can be
>> interpreted in opposite ways.  Please use words like higher and lower
>> priority.
>
> Hello to Brisbane!
>
> Thanks for the report.
>
> "Favorable" means the kernel will favor this process before
> it will take "least favorable" processes into account for
> scheduling.
>
> I don't think the words "higher"/"lower" will bring clarity
> to it, maybe it'd even be worse because a higher nice number
> leads to lower priority.
>
> What about a stronger term like "aggressive scheduling"?

Well with relative terms, it's best to state what they're relative to,
so I'll apply something like this, as the wording is ambiguous.

thanks!
Pádraig.

diff --git a/src/nice.c b/src/nice.c
index 1a90320..12d0b0f 100644
--- a/src/nice.c
+++ b/src/nice.c
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ usage (int status)
       printf (_("\
 Run COMMAND with an adjusted niceness, which affects process scheduling.\n\
 With no COMMAND, print the current niceness.  Nicenesses range from\n\
-%d (most favorable scheduling) to %d (least favorable).\n\
+%d (least favorable to the system) to %d (least favorable to the process).\n\
 \n\
   -n, --adjustment=N   add integer N to the niceness (default 10)\n\
 "),

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