[Python-Dev] PEP 215 redux: toward a simplified consensus? (original) (raw)

Skip Montanaro skip@pobox.com
Mon, 25 Feb 2002 17:16:24 -0600 

SM> What do you mean by "translators"?

BAW> Someone who is fluent in a natural language other than English, and
BAW> translates a catalog of English source strings to a target
BAW> non-English natural language.  E.g.

BAW>  "No such list: %(listname)s" -> "Non esiste la lista: %(listname)s"

So translators aren't programmers either. Just tell them anything between %(...) and the first alphabetic character after that is off-limits. Again, it doesn't look to me like a programmer problem.

Just to play the devil's advocate (and ignoring the bit about $-strings not being i18n-friendly), I suspect non-programming translators would have just as much trouble with something like

<span class="katex"><span class="katex-mathml"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><semantics><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">&quot;</mi><mi>P</mi><mi>l</mi><mi>e</mi><mi>a</mi><mi>s</mi><mi>e</mi><mi>c</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>n</mi><mi>f</mi><mi>i</mi><mi>r</mi><mi>m</mi><mi>y</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>u</mi><mi>r</mi><mi>c</mi><mi>h</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>i</mi><mi>c</mi><mi>e</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>f</mi><mi>c</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>l</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>r</mi><mo stretchy="false">(</mo></mrow><annotation encoding="application/x-tex">&quot;Please confirm your choice of color (</annotation></semantics></math></span><span class="katex-html" aria-hidden="true"><span class="base"><span class="strut" style="height:1em;vertical-align:-0.25em;"></span><span class="mord">&quot;</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.01968em;">Pl</span><span class="mord mathnormal">e</span><span class="mord mathnormal">a</span><span class="mord mathnormal">seco</span><span class="mord mathnormal">n</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.10764em;">f</span><span class="mord mathnormal">i</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.02778em;">r</span><span class="mord mathnormal">m</span><span class="mord mathnormal">yo</span><span class="mord mathnormal">u</span><span class="mord mathnormal">rc</span><span class="mord mathnormal">h</span><span class="mord mathnormal">o</span><span class="mord mathnormal">i</span><span class="mord mathnormal">ceo</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.10764em;">f</span><span class="mord mathnormal">co</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.01968em;">l</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.02778em;">or</span><span class="mopen">(</span></span></span></span>color)..."

"$color" will look like a word to be translated. You would have to tell them "don't translate anything immediately following a dollar sign up to, but not inluding the next character that can't be part of a Python identifier." Seems either a bit error-prone or confusing to me if I pretend I'm not a programmer.

Skip