Re: [PATCH RFC 0/2] Mixing English and a local language

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 13, 2012, 18:04 UTC
Message-ID: <20120913180445.GB1696@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vr4q595fb.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 10:52:08AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 29 quoted lines

> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
> 
> >>      But it should not be per-command, but per-message, and
> >>      should include all output that is not diagnostic and is not
> >>      machine-parseable (e.g., what I mentioned above, request-pull
> >>      output, etc). If it is the project's language, then the team
> >>      members will need to know it anyway, so it should not be too big a
> >>      burden to have a potentially different language there than in the
> >>      diagnostic messages.
> >
> > No matter what the project languages is, machine parseable part will
> > not be localized but fixed to "C" anyway, so I do not think it comes
> > into the picture.
> >
> > My take on this is, if there is the project language, it should
> > apply to _everything_.  Please do not introduce any per-command,
> > per-message, per-anything mess.  Just set LANG/LC_ALL up and be done
> > with it.
> >
> > And I think you justified why that is the right thing to do very
> > well in the second sentence in the above paragraph I quoted from
> > you.
> 
> You seem to be saying that diagnostic does not have to be in project
> language, but I do not think it is the right thing to do.  The first
> response to "Frotz does not work" is often "What do you exactly
> mean?  How did you run Frotz?  What error message are you getting
> from it?", and you do not want to get back the diagnostics in
> Klingon.

By that line of reasoning, wouldn't all git developers be required to set LANG=C? Fine by me as an English speaker, but I get the impression that other developers are using the localization. I don't think there is anything wrong with primarily working in your native language, but making the effort to switch for communicating with teammates (either when writing them emails, or using LANG=C when showing them output from your terminal).

If the "switch to LANG=C" thing is a relatively rare thing, I don't see a problem. The issue with the diffstat is that it is too easy to accidentally send out a localized one.

-Peff