Re: Error in .po file ?

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

ons 2003-08-20 klockan 15.40 skrev Dafydd Harries:
> > Shouldn't these be changed to something like "first element" and "second
> > element", or at least explained in a translator comment?
> > If these messages are intended for non-developers (and non-LISPers) I
> > think the terms "car" and "cdr" should be abandoned.
> 
> I think it's questionable whether "Bad first element in XML pair" is any
> better than "Bad car in XML pair" for the average user.

It's certainly more easily translated, and thus giving better
translations.


> The quesiton is:
> are these messages useful to users, or are they useful to developer
> only? And if they are not useful to users, should they be marked
> translatable? I am not gooing to attempt to answer these questions.
>
> This issue is not specific to GConf. There are many translatable
> messages in GNOME of a technical nature.

Let's not start going down the route of assuming that our "non-ordinary"
users don't need translations -- In my experience, that's often simply
not true. I've met quite a few technical people who had problems with
English, and preferred localized interfaces wherever they were
available.

And these people aren't just our users -- sometimes they are the
administrators of our systems too, or even aspiring contributors. We
can't assume that only the users of our most visible desktop UI are the
ones needing translations; we need translations of more technical
behind-the-scenes stuff too. This includes command line tools and
technical error messages.


Christian