From: Peter Krefting Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:45:56 GMT Subject: Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release? Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <200901271216.59687.jnareb@gmail.com> Jakub Narebski: > Fundamental, that program output is considered API (at least for > plumbing commands) and used when scripting (this might be ameliorated > with "I am script" switch or environmental variable). That's a bug. Protocol data (which one could consider the plumbing output to be) should never be forwarded to the end-user, except for debugging purposes. It is the porcelain's task here to translate the messages for the user. Plumbing commands could still output semi-readable English, but it is still to be considered protocol, and be hidden from the user. Having low-level protocol data filter through to the end-user is a common mistake in software, unfortunately, and makes internationalization and localization a lot harder. Of course, if the user insists on calling the plumbing commands directly, he will not get translated output. That's expected behaviour. > Technical, because Git is mixture of programs in C, shell scripts, > and Perl scripts, and you have to come with technical means of > translating messages in all three of them. Gettext has succesfully been used to translate messages in all of these environments, so that should not be a big problem. > Not in all cases. Sometimes it shows "long usage". Perhaps that > should be made more consistent? Consistency is good. -- \\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/