Believe me, I've had a few headaches over the years regarding NLS. This led to the myriad of ways to do NLS in Edlin. Anyway, all the strings that would need to be translated are #defines in msgs.h, and I included a simple filter program to generate msgs.h files from the NLS files. I don't know if NLS was done the right way from the start (POSIX sus4, anyone?) but you shouldn't have to put a hundred FreeDOS programmers into a room and get 101 ways of doing NLS in a program.
Edlin is supposed to be TINY, and I've turned into the guardian of bloat. I've tried to make it so that someone who is not in the priesthood could easily compile the thing with the right compiler, and I've tried to be broad about the compiler to use. Instead of tight 80x86 assembler, I made it portable as hell. It runs on Linux! It runs on Windows! It runs on Homer Simpson's brain! (Maybe...) Someone compiled it on a smartphone! Now I'm ranting.... Gregory > On 02/04/2024 2:55 PM EST Ralf Quint via Freedos-devel > <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > > On 2/4/2024 11:32 AM, Jerome Shidel via Freedos-devel wrote: > > Hi, > > > >> On Feb 4, 2024, at 2:16 PM, Ralf Quint via Freedos-devel > >> <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > >> > >> On 2/4/2024 10:17 AM, Gregory Pietsch via Freedos-devel wrote: > >>> I made recompiling Edlin easy for non-programmers, so that shouldn't be a > >>> problem. You don't have to know a lick of C to recompile it. > >> Well, part of the problem is that in order to recompile, you need to have > >> the compiler (toolchain) installed, which isn't necessarily easy for a > >> non-programmer. > >> > >> > >> Ralf > > I have occasionally compiled edlin to provide an updated version for > > FreeDOS. > > > > As compile from source goes, EDLIN is not that bad. If I recall correctly, > > It just needs our Watcom-C to compile. Plus a little knowledge on options > > and such things. > > > > In general, it is extremely cumbersome to acquire all the exact required > > pieces to accomplish. An fairly often after spending a few hours on trying > > to get a successful compile, I will end up giving up. Therefore, I do that > > very rarely anymore for almost anything. > The problem with the whole NLS/i18n thing is that it is not only done > with just translating some text extruded from the sources. And > recompiling some programs which don't lend themselves well to the whole > "kitten" shebang. It would require a lot of testing, which needs to be > done by someone with those native language skills (plus some technical > knowledge what it is all about). A lot of command line tools might be > fairly easy to do, but for anything that is using a more formatted > screen output, this also requires to check where things are > "overflowing" (for lack of a better term right now)/misalignment... > And we have a very limited number of people that would have ALL the > required skills. > IMHO, before getting too much wound up with everything that is involved, > I think we need to make sure to have a proper English version, for > everything, > > > > As discussed in the online meeting, it would be nice to include dependency > > requirements in the package metadata. This makes me think we could possibly > > include the build-dependency requirements as well. Plus a per package > > universal build batch. That would be a lot of work and probably require > > frequent updating when packages change. > I see that there would be some effort initially to add that info, but > seriously, how much are dependencies as such changing for any given > program after that? > > > > But on the other hand, it would be very nice if all programs (excluding > > those made with commercial compilers like Turbo Pascal) could be built from > > source simply by installing the required build packages. > > > > This leads me to think, maybe we should go back to the old days when > > sources were in their own separate package and not included in the binaries > > package. > > > That was a move that I have never understood in the first place, as the > vast majority of people downloading FreeDOS are likely just interested > in getting it running, rather than doing any development. Specially if > things aren't as simple anymore as they (mostly) used to be in the days > of DOS, too many Linuxisms have crept in, which makes it so much harder > for people that are just trying to get back into DOS and haven't done > anything programming wise for the last 20-30 years, and then in things > like BASIC or Turbo Pascal, which are all "programma non grata" for a > lot of OSS license minded folks... > > > Ralf > > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
