Messages in this thread | | | From | "Riley Williams" <> | Subject | RE: kernel support for non-English user messages | Date | Fri, 11 Apr 2003 23:53:21 +0100 |
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Hi Robert.
> Actually, my final point had been that doing it inside the kernel > itself, or indeed inside klogd, was probably a very bad idea. If > the translation always happens after-the-fact based on properly > harvested message semantics then any segment of messages > distributed into this mailing list (among other uses) would be > > A) Still in English. > B) Translatable after the fact there too. > > Also after-the-fact translation makes the language translations a > scalar problem instead of a matrix one. That is, if you always > pass the message stream around in English (treat it like n opaque > source file) and then translate it as necessary, it will "always > work". > > If you try to do the translations at message generation time, then > the translation must be any-language-to-any-language capable during > post-even discussions. Not good.
I can see the points you're making, and that is precisely why I believe that message codes would be required to implement this idea. As Linus has vetoed the idea of having message codes in the kernel, I can't see it ever coming to fruition.
> Also, you will always have leakage as people add new strings to the > set.
That's the easiest aspect of dealing with it - the tool that generates the language set to use just grabs the "English" language version for any message codes not in the selected translation.
> As for the #define issues, when you process the source tree to build the > source matrix you just "gcc -E file.c | collector" and now the printk > case you mention is handled. Any module designer who does uglier things > can make a dead-code procedure that expresses his possible output strings > for collection (if he cares.)
> {Satire}
> Speaking as an arrogant (U.S. of) American who knows that God(TradeMark, > all rights reserved) decreed that he never had to learn any language but > his own, I can honestly state, that it is nearly certain that you will > get no real support for the multi-language kernel out of a us USAmericans. > We can't even get ourselves to write decent comments, and on the average, > we all secretly believe that if we just speak slowly enough everybody > really knows English. After all, that's how our condescending "wouldn't > want to fail Johnny, it would be bad for his self-image" public schools > taught us in the first place.... 8-)
Speaking as an amused (U.S. of) American, I long ago learned how to tell when somebody is speaking "God's Language"(tm) - that's simple to work out. After all, the most likely people to speak "God's Language"(tm) are those that have just left His presence - the new born babies - so if we want to listen to His language, we just listen to them speak it. What could be simpler???
However, I understand "God's Language"(tm) is not currently understood well enough by the kernel developers for any of them to translate the kernel messages into it...
> {/Satire}
Best wishes from Riley. --- * Nothing as pretty as a smile, nothing as ugly as a frown.
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