Re: format use inquiry

[Jean-Christophe Helary <jean.christophe.helary@gmail.com>]

> On Jun 21, 2017, at 7:53, Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
> 
>> I'd like to know if that kind of code is acceptable or not:
>> 
>> (format "http%s://elpa.gnu.org/packages/"
>>                                        (if (gnutls-available-p) "s" ""))
> 
> Yes, it is. But obviously I think that, since I wrote it.

Thank you for the comment.

Actually I've been checking package.el for code that is used to simulate natural language features, after finding a number of issues with plurals and singulars.

I started doing that at the same time the discussion on i18n and l10n started because when we have the i18n infrastructure in place we'll have to rethink the way messages are written.

The above example is not directly related to that effort since it won't be a string used for translation but it illustrates a strong tendency in package.el where you can find "s" added to a string if the related value is 2 or above, "ing" or "ed" added to a string depending on the status of the operation, etc. That makes for really smart code but it is absolutely untranslatable.

So a few weeks ago I set myself to straighten up the problematic strings and as far as the one I inquired about here is concerned I'd rather have the urls are fully spelled out because it makes the code more readable.

Would you object to that ?

Jean-Christophe