[plt-dev] Re: localization

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Eli Barzilay <eli at barzilay.org> wrote:
> On Apr 22, Matthias Felleisen wrote:
>> Having said that, I am wondering how Java apps are localized. Anyone
>> know?
>
> IIUC, it's very similar to the string-constants library, with one big
> difference, which is (IMO) a design problem with string-constants...
> The difference is that each application has its own set of strings,
> instead of a single repository.  The problem is that the current
> collection of strings is "mostly drscheme", with some tools that are
> part of its gui -- and this creates a dependency bottleneck.  Ignoring
> the issue of whether it's good or not to localize error messages
> without localizing the languae's identifiers, a more obvious way to
> see the problem is if someone wants to write a DrScheme extension and
> make it use different strings -- with the current design, the only way
> to get that is to add the new strings to the central pool, which
> doesn't make much sense.
>
> "Fixing" the current string-constants should probably be done roughly
> as a generalization of the core language selection mechanism and macro
> into a new library, then make the current string-constant library use
> that.  If/when that's done, it will be possible to split the constants
> into the different applications.
>
> There is a problem with that though -- translation work becomes more
> difficult to do, since there are more than one file to track down.

fwiw, the string constants library started out for just a single app.
So the above (modulo the problem you mention) is a natural step in its
evolution.

Robby