From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs i18n (was: bug#34520: delete-matching-lines should report how many lines it deleted) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2019 18:36:50 +0200 Message-ID: <83o96qegv1.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87o97aq6gz.fsf@jidanni.org> <87tvgoud56.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <83o96wk2mi.fsf@gnu.org> <87k1hjfvjd.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <871s3p0zdz.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <83h8ckezyt.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="122073"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, juri@linkov.net To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 04 17:37:42 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1h0qaz-000VdT-G2 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 04 Mar 2019 17:37:41 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:56973 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h0qay-0006TC-Ee for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 04 Mar 2019 11:37:40 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:49634) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h0qaL-000684-Tl for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 Mar 2019 11:37:02 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:58553) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h0qaL-0005ob-Go; Mon, 04 Mar 2019 11:37:01 -0500 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=2738 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1h0qaF-00024e-E1; Mon, 04 Mar 2019 11:36:55 -0500 In-reply-to: (message from Richard Stallman on Sun, 03 Mar 2019 22:27:36 -0500) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:233816 Archived-At: > From: Richard Stallman > Cc: juri@linkov.net, emacs-devel@gnu.org > Date: Sun, 03 Mar 2019 22:27:36 -0500 > > That is quite true. However, I recommend a different approach to > doing the job. An incremental one. > > Let's install the lookup code and make `message' call it -- not using > advice. Perhaps we should rewrite it into C, since it is short > and we will want to call it from C code. > > Let's develop something to load translations from po files. Let's > develop software to generate and write lists of messages that need > translating. > > Then people can start developing useful sets of translations. > > Meanwhile, we can also hook it into other interfaces where it > appropriate. The incremental approach is a great approach, but it does have its limitations. Especially when several non-trivial features will eventually need to be compatible with each other to be true parts of a greater whole, which is i18n for Emacs. For example, it is IMO pointless to be able to display translated strings from 'message' without also having a convenient automated way of collecting translatable messages and creating a message catalog that such a 'message' could use, or without being able to install such message catalogs for different ELisp packages. IOW, this feature, like many other large features, cannot be implemented in increments that are too small. Each increment should be large enough to make sense. And then there's a more complex issue of how the increments will work together; some thought must be invested in that up front.