Follow-up Comment #4, bug #17269 (project mc): Localizing an already localized string definitely shows wrong design. Theoretically it can lead to false strings appearing on the screen (if the first translated string happens to be the same as an English string used somewhere else in mc). It's quite unlikely for this bug to ever occur, but still it's better to avoid it by good design. It'd be bad if the person first hitting this bug would have to choose different wording or if he had to fix mc in this respect.
(Theoretically :-)) each function has a documented interface of what the meaning of its arguments are, and this documentation should state for all strings whether they are localized or not. You say: "this may not be the best solution since the programmer must know that it should call nice_cd () with N_() instead of _()". I think this approach is wrong. Every programmer wishing to use an already implemented function should first check the docs or the comments in the code to see what this function expects and then use it accordingly. If there's no docs stating whether the argument to nice_cd should be localized or not then _this_ is a bug in mc. If there are docs, however, then there's nothing you can do against wrong usage and it's not your problem anymore. (BTW it starts resembling the usually-misunderstood Hungarian notation by Simonyi, see: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Wrong.html for the right explanation. If strings are always stored in variables whose name begins with a prefix stating whether it's already localized, to be localized, or non-translateable, then these kinds of bugs are less likely to occur.) About your first suggestion: it avoids translating an already translated string, hence it should really be done. About your second suggestion: it could make the config file look the same even if for some reason the English UI string is modified. Hence it is a nice move, too. So, I recommend making both changes :-) _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?17269> _______________________________________________ Message sent via/by Savannah http://savannah.gnu.org/ _______________________________________________ Mc-devel mailing list http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mc-devel
