Re: Translations, GNOME, and KDE

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

Murray Cumming Comneon com wrote:

> > "Don't translate console messages" may hold true in a number of cases 
> > but I really don't agree with the blanket statement.  It 
> > presumes that 
> > "users" never open a terminal or console.  Or that all console-users 
> > (whether we classify them as "end users" or 7337) prefer English.  
> > Faulty logic.
> >
> > Messages that are "not useful to end users" shouldn't be translated - 
> > but should they be sent to the console at all?  Kind of begs the 
> > question.  So one could also logically argue that all console output 
> > should be marked for translation (or not exist at all).
> >    
>
> I think the blanket statement makes sense if you say that console messages
> are for developers rather than users, and that developers all speak english.
Note that I said 'prefer English'.
I am of course questioning the appropriateness of console-based user error
messages (by inference) too.  Sometimes console output is right, 
sometimes it's
just expedient ;-).  Many folks would say that developer-centric console 
output
should not be enabled by default (kind of like -g builds).
And there are still console apps; otherwise why put gnome-terminal in
'desktop' category instead of 'developer tools' ?  There's an a11y 
impact too,
since console apps can be more efficient for some tasks/users.

> Translated error messages actually make bug tracking more difficult, though
> that's unavoidable for real user-visable error messages.
>  
Right.  Though two possible solutions occur to me:

(1) availability of an error number (previously discussed here I 
think).  Users hate these
because they look cryptic and unfriendly, but they do help bug tracking.
(2) one could make a reverse-lookup tool that turned a localized message 
into
its C equivalent msgid.  Of course that'd depend on stable error 
messages and/or
the application and version.  Also previously discussed here (I think) was
an 'error message repository' of some kind so that GNOME's error messages
could be pulled from a commonly translated list.  That has its own 
limitations of course.

BTW apologies for replying to a sort-of stale thread in the first place: 
I am doing the post-holiday
catchup and reading backwards.

- Bill

> Murray Cumming
> www.murrayc.com
> murrayc usa net
>