[pacman-dev] Improving Pacman's messages

[Dag Eldar Tangen]

on., 29.07.2009 kl. 23.01 +0300, skrev Roman Kyrylych:
> Hi!
> 
> During my translation of pacman/libalpm files
> I've noticed a significant number of inconsistencies
> and messages that are difficult to translate to a language
> that is quite different from Western European languages
> without knowing in what context they are used
> and what kind of text can hide behind %s.
> (e.g. what "Held by %s" is supposed to mean?
> if translated directly to my language without specifying
> a type of %s object the meaning will be confusing).
> 
> To all pacman committers:
> _please_ use consistent and descriptive text.
> I am sure that some messages could be made more specific,
> not only simplifying the work of translators,
> but also understanding by users.
> 
> In addition, it would be easier for translators if some
> native English speaker could check .pot files before string freeze.
> It seems to me that there may be some duplicates removed,
> and alot of related messages made more consistent.
> 
> I understand that text cosmetics is not a top priority
> when developing some new feature,
> but doing some text cleanup before string freeze
> (while keeping in mind that every single line of text
> may and will be translated to a (very) different language,
> _and_ trying to make the text look clear for most users)
> does worth some time spent.
> I can do such work for next pacman releases
> (not sure if I can "generate" good English messages
> since it's not my native language, but at least I can
> point to a text that's not clear to understand/translate etc.)
> 
> I know it's too late to make such changes now,
> but I hope this can be done for future pacman releases.
> 

Agree.

I have done some unofficial translation on Pacman 3.2.2 to Norwegian
Bokmal, mostly for fun.
While a translation seems fine in my editor (Poedit), I have to rewrite
approximately 80% of the messages when I see them in a real-life
context, using Pacman.

this is the main reason I have not submitted a translation yet, because
I have a lot of messages I have NOT seen in my day to day use, and I
dare not guarantee their consistency and clarity.

Dag E. Tangen