[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 292, Simpler String Substitutions

[Neil Hodgson]

[Doh! Forgot to send to the list as well - shouldn't try to use a computer
when I have a cold]

Barry A. Warsaw:

> Trust me, I'm not.  Then again, maybe it's just me, or my limited
> experience w/ i18n'd source code, but being forced to pass in the
> explicit bindings is a big burden in terms of maintainability and
> readability.

   My main experience in internationalization has been in GUI apps where
there is often a strong separation between the localizable static text and
the variable text. In dialogs you often have:

Static localized description: [Editable variable]

   In my editor SciTE, which currently has about 15 translations, of the 177
localizable strings, only 9 are messages that require insertion of variables
and all of those require only one variable. Most of the strings are menu or
dialog items. Maybe I'm just stingy with messages :-)

   On the largest sensibly internationalized project I have worked on (7
years old and with a maximum of 20 reasearch/design/develop/test staff when
I left), I would estimate that less than 50 messages required variable
substitution.

   The amount of effort that went into ensuring that the messages were
accurate, meaningful and understandable outweighed by several orders of
magnitude any typing or reading work.

   Neil