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From: dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu (David Starner)
Subject: Re: I18N gettext style
Date: 2000/03/06
Message-ID: <8a0qgj$aqm1@news.cis.okstate.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 593901780
References: <89q6pg$9ac1@news.cis.okstate.edu> <38c3b85f@eeyore.callnetuk.com>
Organization: Oklahoma State University
User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux)
Reply-To: dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 2000-03-06T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

On Mon, 6 Mar 2000 02:12:03 -0000, 
Nick Roberts <nickroberts@callnetuk.com> wrote:
>To precis it incredibly briefly, my advice is to: (a) use forms such as
>"Number of widgets: " for each message, so that the problem of inserting
>parameters goes away; 

Which is ugly, and won't always work. It's too much of a PITA to do that
when it's simple to fix.

>(b) use a database to store the messages in different
>languages, so that (one good reason for a start) you can use standard
>database tools to enter, edit, browse, report, analyse, check, etc., the
>text; (c) to be really fancy, build in a default set of messages, in case
>the program is run in circumstances where the database isn't available.

In other words, do it like gettext does, except replace the .po files - that
are plain text and have several specialized editors - with a database -
which is binary (big/little endian problems) and requires the translator 
use different tools that she's probably not familiar with.

Frankly, my current plan - if I don't quit using Ada for a more Unix friendly
language - is to rewrite/adapt/wrap gettext. It's the standard on Linux,
and I'm going to lose enough users due to Ada and libgtkada already. I
don't need to drive away anymore due to a non-standard translation system.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Only a nerd would worry about wrong parentheses with
square brackets. But that's what mathematicians are.
   -- Dr. Burchard, math professor at OSU