Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 5 Dec 1998 07:24:36 -0500 (EST) | From | "Mark H. Wood" <> | Subject | Re: Internationalizing Linux |
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On Fri, 4 Dec 1998, Drago Goricanec wrote: > On 03 Dec 1998 16:25:16 +0100, Jes Sorensen writes: > > Oh and how to you expect kernel hackers to be able to help debug a > > problem when someone posts dmesg output in Chinese to linux-kernel? > > So is that why the old IBM mainframes tagged every system message with > a unique identifier?
Yup. VMS has the same thing. The documentation kit includes two binders containing a listing of all the messages in the base system, sorted by the horrible-identifier for easy access, and explaining the message in some detail (often with suggested responses). IBM organizes the text a bit differently but the principle is the same. Anyone who has a basic understanding of how the Roman alphabet is organized, can look up the tag whether he understands English or not. The books themselves are of course localizable. (IBM actually did away with human-readable text altogether in the messages -- you *have to* go to the book to know what happened, until you learn the codes by heart.)
-- Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer mwood@IUPUI.Edu Innovation is only valuable if it improves one's life; otherwise it's just one more silly change to cope with.
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