String translation

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Neil Jerram <address@hidden> writes:

> address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

>> On a related note, when bootstrapping, `autoreconf' complains that we're
>> using `AM_GNU_GETTEXT' without having `po' in `SUBDIRS'---which is
>> normal since no string is internationalized.  Still, is there something
>> we could do about it?

Note that I was initially looking for a quick solution to make
`autoreconf' happier.  Having an empty `po' directory is one solution
(admittedly an ugly one).

> I guess we could start some token internationalization...  Perhaps we
> could start with the "ERROR" in display_header(), and who knows where
> that might lead?  Translation of Guile's messages can only be a good
> thing, n'est-ce pas?

He he.  ;-)

Actually, I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea since some
messages have been used in programs as error condition descriptions,
most notably in the test suite, because they provide more information
that just the `throw' key.  Thus, translating error messages may have
undesirable side effects.

OTOH, we could try too look at these exceptions whose messages are used
in programs and try to rework them so that programs don't have to rely
on messages to understand what's going on.  That could only be done in
HEAD, though, and we could hardly avoid the introduction of
incompatibilities, I think.

Thanks,
Ludovic.