Re: Before l10n, better practices for (message) ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Jean-Christophe Helary <address@hidden>
> Date: Wed, 24 May 2017 07:03:36 +0900
> 
> 
> > On May 24, 2017, at 3:42, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
> > 
> >> If we were to externalize strings in a given file, would a (setq) at the 
> >> beginning of the file do the trick or are there better ways to store 
> >> "key=value" data?
> > 
> > I don't think I understand the proposal.  Please elaborate.
> 
> (setq
> (key1 "string1")
> (key2 "string2"))

I believe you meant something like

  (setq key1 "string1"
        key2 "string2")

> (message key1)
> (message key2)

One problem with this approach is that the programmer who writes the
original code and provides the messages in English will have to
manually create the English message catalog.

Another problem is how to combine such catalogs from different source
files, and/or make sure the "keyN" names from different files don't
clash.

IOW, the question of suitable infrastructure is still there, with any
approach.  That's why it is better to start by using whatever relevant
infrastructure is provided by gettext, because at least some of these
issues are already solved there, and because the package itself is
widely available.