From: Junio C Hamano Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:52:21 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 02/73] gettext tests: add GETTEXT_POISON to simulate unfriendly translator Message-ID: <7vvd08atnu.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20110225070834.GB23037@elie> Jonathan Nieder writes: [offtopic: why is Jakub on the CC list? -- I don't recall him saying much on this topic yet...] > The idea of the GETTEXT_POISON facility is to simulate a worst-case > translation, so that strings marked for translation that cause trouble > can be noticed and dealt with. I've never thought this was about a "worst-case translation". Isn't this about emitting all the strings marked for translation in a form significantly different from the original, in the hope that such an output would help us find messages that should never be marked for translation by triggering test failures? I do not see any "worst-case", just different enough for the plumbing tests to break. IOW, I don't think this is about helping translators in l10n, but about helping coders in i18n department. > A string starting with "#" does not seem particularly well suited > for that purpose, since it makes '#' characters that mark a comment > and that translators must be careful not to remove harder to find. Hence, I would suggest an alternative phrasing of the above part (and alternative way of thinking): '... since it easily hides a mistaken marking of a line that _has_ to always start with "#" followed by a translatable string.'