The ASCII language and some other things

The ASCII language and some other things

[Lennart Borgman]

It disturbs me a bit to find the "ASCII" language when choosing "Help - 
Emacs Tutorial (choose language)...".

I think also that I would prefer something like "Emacs Tutorial in other 
Languages ...".

But this is not very important so I hope I do not start a long 
discussion on this.

Re: The ASCII language and some other things

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 01:15:12 +0100
> From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>
> 
> It disturbs me a bit to find the "ASCII" language when choosing "Help - 
> Emacs Tutorial (choose language)...".

"ASCII" is an alias for "English".  We could filter it out when the
completion produces a list of known languages, but isn't it possible
that someone who is not a native English speaker will find that alias
useful?  After all, we have that alias for a reason, right?

> I think also that I would prefer something like "Emacs Tutorial in other 
> Languages ...".

This would be a lie, since _all_ the languages are listed, not only
languages other than the current one (the one set by the language
environment).

Re: The ASCII language and some other things

[Lennart Borgman]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>>Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 01:15:12 +0100
>>From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>
>>
>>It disturbs me a bit to find the "ASCII" language when choosing "Help - 
>>Emacs Tutorial (choose language)...".
>>    
>>
>
>"ASCII" is an alias for "English".  
>
Thanks, I guessed it was in English, but is "ASCII" the same as 
"English" here?

>We could filter it out when the
>completion produces a list of known languages, but isn't it possible
>that someone who is not a native English speaker will find that alias
>useful?  After all, we have that alias for a reason, right?
>  
>
Yes, but what I wanted to say is that I do not understand the reason. 
"English" is also in the list. Why is not that enough?

Re: The ASCII language and some other things

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 08:32:09 +0100
> From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>
> CC: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> >"ASCII" is an alias for "English".  
> >
> Thanks, I guessed it was in English, but is "ASCII" the same as 
> "English" here?

Yes, I think so; see lisp/language/english.el.

> >We could filter it out when the
> >completion produces a list of known languages, but isn't it possible
> >that someone who is not a native English speaker will find that alias
> >useful?  After all, we have that alias for a reason, right?
> >  
> >
> Yes, but what I wanted to say is that I do not understand the reason. 
> "English" is also in the list. Why is not that enough?

You mean, you don't understand the reason for having the "ASCII"
alias?  I could think of a couple of reasons, but I don't actually
know the history of this.  Perhaps someone else does.

Re: The ASCII language and some other things

[Richard M. Stallman]

    It disturbs me a bit to find the "ASCII" language when choosing "Help - 
    Emacs Tutorial (choose language)...".

How about if you fix it?

    I think also that I would prefer something like "Emacs Tutorial in other 
    Languages ...".

I prefer the current text.

Re: The ASCII language and some other things

[Richard M. Stallman]

    "ASCII" is an alias for "English".

How general is this alias?

      We could filter it out when the
    completion produces a list of known languages, but isn't it possible
    that someone who is not a native English speaker will find that alias
    useful?

Not as the name of a tutorial.  Anyone who can read the English tutorial
can surely read the word "English".

	     After all, we have that alias for a reason, right?

It could be useful for other purposes, but not for this purposes.

RE: The ASCII language and some other things

[Drew Adams]

    Anyone who can read the English tutorial
    can surely read the word "English".

(Another pearl for the humor file.)

Yes, but "ASCII" sounds so, well, ASCII. ;-)