Re: balsa segfault

[Birger Langkjer <birger langkjer image dk>]

Den tir, 01 feb 2000 19:29:51 Jules Bean skrev:
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Birger Langkjer wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > Hi, I can compile balsa and install it, but everytime I run it, it
> > segfaults immediately.
> > 
> 
> Have you got an old (0.4.x) .balsarc lying around?
> 
> If so, move it out the way and try again..
> 
> Jules


I tried to compile it again yesterday (the cvs-version) and now it 
suddenly 
works. I removed all traces of an old version and installed with 
'./autogen.sh --enable-debug --prefix=/usr', I don't know if the last 
information means anything. I also moved ~/.balsarc out of the way.


Btw, I like the changes you've made to it, it looks much better, 
especially the compose window and the options menu. Balsa could rock yet 

with a little more work.


Btw2, I found a little bug: When I use reply to all, the words 
'recipient list not shown' are included in the cc line (look at the 
headers).


Btw3, the import GnomeCard function no longer works after I installed 
the development version of gnome-pim (I know what the answer to this 
problem is: uninstall 1.1 - reinstall 1.0, I just wanted to let you 
know).


Btw4, the new 'Show' option is cool, but the strings have to be marked 
for translation.


Btw5, notice the first line: 

"Den tir, 01 feb 2000 19:29:51 Jules Bean skrev:"

This sounds completely backwards in danish, ideally it should be:

"Tirsdag den 01 feb 2000 19:29:51 skrev Jules Bean:"

Of course making sentences like this that sound right in all languages 
in the world is extremely difficult at times. Allow me to qoute my 
mentor in all things i18n ;-) :

-------------------
To:     linux-utf8@nl.linux.org
From:   Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Reply-To: linux-utf8@nl.linux.org
Subject: Re: gettext and plurals 

Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk wrote on 2000-01-31 15:19 UTC:
> > According to [1], there are languages with more than singular
> > and plural:
> 
> It's worse in Polish, Russian and other Slavic languages.

The proper thing to do is to avoid using numbers inside English
sentences where this is feasible.

Good programming style:

  printf("New mails: %d", n);

Bad programming style:

  printf("You have %d new mail%s.", n, n==1 ? "" : "s");

One is as user friendly and neat as the other. In fact keeping the
number out of the sentence will make parsing the output for the brain of
the experienced user (and also post-processing software!) much faster
and simpler.

Similarly for dates: Instead of writing out a date as "This message was
delivered on 3rd February, 2000", better write "Message delivered:
2000-02-03".

Adding lots of complexity to message substitution mechanisms to handle
plurals, ordinal numbers, dates, etc. has nothing to do with user
friendliness. Avoiding dependencies of the phrases from numeric output
often leads to much shorter and easier to recognize output anyway, even
in English.

Program translators should provide feedback and patches to developers
where these used unfortunate message constructs that are difficult to
translate. In these cases, the English source version has to be
simplified.

----------------------

Perhaps the best solution is to keep strings that contain dates, numbers 

etc. as simple as you can.


Btw6, if I choose 'lokal user mail agent' instead of 'localhost' in 
options,
the email remains in the Outbox although I check for new mail. What _is_
a lokal user mail agent actually?

	Birger