On 1/28/07, Stephen Colebourne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Phil Steitz wrote: > I am interested in what others have to > say about this as a general practice for commons. For [math] specifically, > I think it is important that we can fit seamlessly into localized > applications, and we are refactoring our exceptions hierarchy anyway, so I > say go for it. I disagree strongly with the whole concept of localized exception messages. Localization for users yes, but developers no. > On 1/28/07, Luc Maisonobe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As a non-native english speaker, I am quite eager to provide users > with libraries that can be embedded seemlessly into localized > applications. IMO, a localized application actually means localization for users, and implies nothing for developers. Adding localized error messages is another place for the application to go wrong, so you're going to have to test this fully. After all, if you get it wrong, you could lose the real exception and just get a meaningless failed to localize exception. And thats a terrible outcome. For the record, I would -1 any code commit to add localized error messages to a component I actively commit to.
I'm late to the table on this thread, and only care about the Commons libraries I care about :-), but you should be aware that this attitude will disqualify the use of such libraries from use within code from organizations that have strict rules about implementing localization. I work for such an organization (Sun) ... the key rules are that any message that might be visible to users *must* be localizable. For log messages, that tends to translate into a straightforward policy that DEBUG and TRACE type messages do not need to be localized, but anything from INFO level above must be. The issue for exception messages is a bit more interesting. How does the library developer know whether or not the message part of the exception will be displayed to end users? From a pragmatic viewpoint, you can pretty much assume this will happen with exceptions in webapps, while many Swing apps will hide that sort of stuff to some degree. But, as a bottom line, if I'm interested in maximum adoption of a Commons library I work on, I will diligently ensure that exception messages are localizable :-). Stephen Craig ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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