From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 28766 invoked by alias); 12 Feb 2005 11:32:17 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 28703 invoked from network); 12 Feb 2005 11:32:08 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO romy.inter.net.il) (192.114.186.66) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 12 Feb 2005 11:32:08 -0000 Received: from zaretski (pns03-205-52.inter.net.il [80.230.205.52]) by romy.inter.net.il (MOS 3.5.6-GR) with ESMTP id ANH65728 (AUTH halo1); Sat, 12 Feb 2005 13:31:37 +0200 (IST) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:57:00 -0000 From: "Eli Zaretskii" To: Kevin Buettner Message-ID: <01c510f5$Blat.v2.4$edb4acc0@zahav.net.il> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 CC: kettenis@gnu.org, gdb@sources.redhat.com In-reply-to: <20050211212415.1c7d28ad@ironwood.lan> (message from Kevin Buettner on Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:24:15 -0700) Subject: Re: i18n and internal errors Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii References: <200502120253.j1C2rfUc003498@copland.sibelius.xs4all.nl> <20050211212415.1c7d28ad@ironwood.lan> X-SW-Source: 2005-02/txt/msg00089.txt.bz2 > Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:24:15 -0700 > From: Kevin Buettner > Cc: gdb@sources.redhat.com > > On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:53:41 -0500 (EST) > Mark Kettenis wrote: > > > Should we really be marking internal errors for translation? I think > > we shouldn't. These are all messages the end-user shouldn't be > > seeing. Having them translated, makes it only more difficult for us > > to fix bugs. > > I agree. I don't. Mark gave 2 reasons for not translating internal errors: . end users should not see these messages . having them translated makes it difficult to fix bugs If I understand these reasons as Mark meant, they actually say: if an end user sees and reports such a message in translated form, those of us who don't understand the translated message will have difficulty finding and fixing the bug. If that's what Mark meant, then he obviously says that end users _will_ see these messages. Messages that end users see should be translated, so that the users will understand them easily. Fatal messages should certainly be understood unequivocally, because it's crucial that the user understands the situation on which she is asked to act (dump core, continue, etc.) As for the difficulty in fixing the bugs, the fatal messages typically include a file name and a line number which point to the place where the bug was caught. I think that alleviates some of the difficulties. Also, it is customary for users to translate the messages into English when reporting bugs (a case in point is messages from the OS utilities that have some relevance to the bug being reported), since the users generally understand that English is a better language to talk to maintainers. As another data point, none of the GNU projects in which I'm involved decided not to translate messages about internal errors. So, on balance, I think we should translate the internal error messages.