[pacman-dev] [PATCH 1/3] Fix pacman's log messages not being translated

[Dave Reisner]

On Dec 13, 2012 7:20 AM, "Allan McRae" <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
>
> On 13/12/12 22:12, jjacky wrote:
> >
> > On 12/13/12 12:48, Allan McRae wrote:
> >> On 13/12/12 21:38, Olivier Brunel wrote:
> >>> Log messages should be translated as well. (Those from ALPM already
are.)
> >>
> >> I can not find a single alpm_logaction line in libalpm with a
translated
> >> string...
> >
> > Right, not sure what I did, but I got that all wrong indeed, apologies.
> > Should I resend the other two patches without the translation in then?
>
> Not yet... I suggest waiting for comments
>
> > Quick question also: while not a native English speaker, I don't
> > like/use translations myself; Is it how things usually work,
> > translations are for user interface only, and don't apply to logs?
> > Or is this especially for "system" softwares?
>
> We are debating this in IRC...  The --debug output should never be
> translated, but whether the log file should be is debatable.
>
> One thing to note is that translation will break tools that deal with
> the log files like paclog-pkglist from pacman-contrib.
>
> I'd like to hear others opinions on this.
>
> Allan
>
>

I think this could/should be treated like any other proposed change in log
format. Is it worth it in this case? I tend to think not. We've had display
issues in the past and even errors in scripts because of bad translations.
Obviously the "attack" surface is small here given the limited strings
being translated, but I'm generally -1 on this.