Re: new parser: error recovery needs work

[kaih@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen)]

shebs@apple.com (Stan Shebs)  wrote on 17.01.03 in <3E284DF0.4020604@apple.com>:

> Neil Booth wrote:
>
> >Fergus Henderson wrote:-
> >
> >
> >>We've discussed this before.  The concensus last time (as I understood it)
> >>was that alphanumeric message codes where a better alternative to message
> >>numbers.  Message codes are easier to remember, more self-documenting,
> >>and avoid collisions between new warnings added on different CVS branches
> >>or in different repositories.
> >>
> >
> >I take it the idea is that the message code is similar to the text?
> >
> >Then how do we handle internationalization, where users in a different
> >language have never even seen, let alone understand, the English form of
> >the message?
> >
> My theory is to have the names be basically the same as what the
> -Wxxx options use now, so for -Wmissing-prototypes, "missing-prototypes"
> is the name of the warning, and would be available for attributes and
> pragmas just as for command-line options.  The names are orthogonal to
> localization, they're just arbitrary strings.
>
> Although perhaps to be more politically correct, we should borrow
> from various languages for names.  How about -Wabwesende-Urbilder? :-)

That might make German programmers look funny at you - I've never seen  
prototypes translated as "Urbilder". I think "Prototypen" is usually used,  
and not only with computers. "Urbilder" sounds like it might be used in  
psychology or philosophy. (In fact, Duden/Oxford only mentions  
"Prototyp".)

Of course, you'd also not translate "missing" with "abwesend" for similar  
though less drastic reasons - it's "fehlend". Which makes this "-Wfehlende- 
Prototypen" ...

Oh, and this points out a last problem, that replacing space with dash  
here *really* looks bad in German. Sorry, no better alternative comes to  
mind.

All in all, I'd prefer keeping those switches English. Translate the docs  
instead. After all, it's still "if" and not "wenn" in the language, as  
well!

MfG Kai