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SubjectRe: New Feature Idea: Configurable text(msgs)
On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Paul Koning wrote:

> This has been dealt with before...
>
> VMS and OS/360 both had a message prefix (a fixed code) plus the
> message string (a potentially changed human-friendly string.
> Translating would affect the latter but not the former. Then you
> could look up the code in a fat book to find the message in case your
> particular system happened to use Basque and you're not fluent in
> that.
>
> I can see it now...
>
> ??Kernel-f-oops, de kernel is enorm de mist in gegaan
>

Yes but... The "kernel-f-oops" wasn't in the kernel. Although some
poorly-written command procedures, including VMSINSTALL.COM, put
these strings in the text. These messages were generated by
SYS$LIBRARY:SYSMSG.EXE and were able to be changed by defining a
new logical name. The actual message was a coded longword. The
coding involved odd/even (low bit) and other identities. You
could test a particular message by executing...

$ EXIT %X1234ABCD


Basically, there was a "facility", i.e., who reported the message,
a "severity", i.e., how bad it was, and "text", which could be
redefined.

The problem is that developers want to use "free-form" text on
most Unixes including Linux. `grep` through the sources for printk(s)
and you will see. With all these actual strings present in the kernel,
Linus decided several years ago, that all messages will be in English
because most everyone who develops or tests kernel code knows
some English.

It has been my experience that most European developers know more English
than most American Software Engineers so it wouldn't hurt to make all
the messages in Octavian ;). Nevertheless, they really should be all
in one common language with any possible translation in "user domain".


Cheers,
Dick Johnson
***** FILE SYSTEM MODIFIED *****
Penguin : Linux version 2.1.87 on an i586 machine (66.15 BogoMips).
Warning : It's hard to remain at the trailing edge of technology.


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