Re: Reg. integration of patch for bug 109091

[Dafydd Harries <daf muse 19inch net>]

Ar 16/02/2004 am 10:48, ysgrifennodd Jody Goldberg:
> The patch is a nice piece of 'fit and finish' work to ensure that a
> corner case is handled smoothly.  I'd like to see this it go in and
> would advocate that it go in even in an untranslated state if need
> be.

To me, this does not make sense. Adding a string without marking it
for translation is, in my opinion, worse than adding a string and making
it translatable. User-visible strings which are not marked for
translation are bugs. Therefore, adding a non-translatable string means
introducing a bug.

It does not benefit the quality of GNOME if translation cannot be done
properly, and if strings aren't marked for translation, translation
can't be done properly.

Yes, it will add more work for translators, but whereas if it's marked
for translation translators will have an opportunity to translate it, if
it isn't marked, it means that all languages have an incomplete
translation despite having translated all the strings in the PO file.

I'm not sure if this is currently the case, but I consider adding a
string during the string freeze to be breaking that freeze, whether it's
marked for translation or not.

In this particular case, I personally approve of the addition of this
string: it makes sense to add it. It would have been better if it had
been added before the freeze, of course.

Perhaps developers need to be made more aware of why we have the string
freeze, what constitutes a string freeze breakage, and what the
procedure is for modifying strings during freeze. I know it's well
documented, but that doesn't seem to be doing much good: just look at
how slushy the current freeze is.

Developers need to have a mindset where they try and get the strings to
a stable state earlier than the rest of the code.

-- 
Dafydd