From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: A system for localizing documentation strings Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:34:05 +0300 Message-ID: References: <795F38F4-7253-47DC-97DD-53BED4F0AB97@mx6.tiki.ne.jp> <3109E7EB-E5E2-49D2-988E-C919334945C1@mx6.tiki.ne.jp> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1185478490 17365 80.91.229.12 (26 Jul 2007 19:34:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:34:50 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Jean-Christophe Helary Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jul 26 21:34:48 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IE96l-0001zw-Jn for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:34:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IE96l-0007YD-35 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:34:47 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IE96D-0007At-As for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:34:13 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IE96C-0007Ad-R0 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:34:13 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IE96C-0007AY-Lf for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:34:12 -0400 Original-Received: from heller.inter.net.il ([213.8.233.23]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IE96C-0003ks-4q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:34:12 -0400 Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 (IGLD-80-230-17-178.inter.net.il [80.230.17.178]) by heller.inter.net.il (MOS 3.7.3a-GA) with ESMTP id DFF87672 (AUTH halo1); Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:34:05 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: <3109E7EB-E5E2-49D2-988E-C919334945C1@mx6.tiki.ne.jp> (message from Jean-Christophe Helary on Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:42:56 +0900) X-detected-kernel: FreeBSD 4.7-5.2 (or MacOS X 10.2-10.4) (2) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:75605 Archived-At: > From: Jean-Christophe Helary > Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:42:56 +0900 > > The fact that the code (.el) will only contain the English string > defeats one of the purposes of the localization. The code is read by programmers, and programmers know English well enough to cope with that. More about this later. > If I read code and I need to check a separate file all the time to > see what the French says then I loose a huge amount of time. I suspect that ``huge amount of time'' is quite an exaggeration. > I think (but I may be wrong) that you consider anything that is not > English as "translations" and English as a gold standard. > > It is important to _not_ think that way to be able to offer the most > flexible framework possible. FWIW, I don't think being dogmatic about these issues will help. My considerations are pragmatic: what I suggested is a smaller change, both in the Emacs infrastructure and in the code. If we keep adding requirements that are not necessary to get this feature off the ground, things will never change for the better, IMO. So we will have to disagree. The differing opinions are clear to the readers, so they can make up their minds; it's no use to continue reiterating the same arguments time and again. Eventually, whoever steps forward to do the actual work will decide on the design and implementation that he/she likes best, because those who do the job get to choose the tools and methods. > The "literate programming" style that elisp/emacs has adopted > _requires_ to be language agnostic as much as possible. Richard will tell for sure, but IMO, Emacs does not try to use the literate programming paradigm. A doc string is not documentation of the code, it is documentation of the _interface_. What Emacs did, in my view, is provide a way to keep user-level documentation (user-level, not programmer-level) together with the code, and provide means for presenting that documentation given the symbol name. There are other projects that do similar things (e.g., GDB), and they are nowhere near literate programming, either. > Here again, you see the process as an English based process. Yes, but only because it's convenient and more practical. > The fact that the "main" emacs is centered on English _currently_ > does not say anything about the state of the code in 10 years from now. Does the fact that we two (and then some), both of us non-native English speakers, discuss this issue in English -- does this fact tell you something? Or do you expect us to converse in Japanese 10 years from now? (My Japanese, as Handa-san can witness, is currently limited to reading Katakana and Hiragana -- but no Kanji! -- at a rate of 1 word/minute using a dictionary where Japanese words are transliterated using Latin letters.) Let's face it: for programmers, English is the most close to the ideal of the universal language.