[PD-dev] locales and iemgui

Hans-Christoph Steiner hans at eds.org
Fri Jan 23 18:51:27 CET 2009


On Jan 23, 2009, at 10:37 AM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Jan 2009, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>
>> I hear you about reusing existing code, but I think there are a  
>> number
>> of code reasons to use msgcat:
>> - it is a widely used standard, so its well documented (esp. compared
>> to our code ;)
>
> So, do you really think that Tcl's GetText 'format' is being used at  
> all outside of Tcl? It's not like it's the same format as used in  
> GNU GetText.

Considering Tcl's msgcat is listed in the official GNU gettext manual  
as "fully portable", I think it is safe to say yes:

http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/gettext/Tcl.html


>> - there are existing tools to make translating easier
>
> Which tools? Never heard of them.

Here is one:
http://www.gted.org/


>> - a well debugged and optimized library
>
> Do you need a well debugged and optimised library for accessing a  
> hashtable when the language already has commands for accessing  
> hashtables freely?
>
> _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
> | Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal, Québec


Do you really think that accessing a hashtable is all there is to  
localization?  How about parsing the names of the locales (en_US,  
en_US.UTF-8, en_GB, etc.)?  That is non-trivial and handled by msgcat,  
as are many other things we haven't thought of, but the people who  
have been working on gettext/msgcat since

.hc

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