🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <KANZE.96Mar14131235@gabi.gabi-soft.fr>, kanze@gabi-soft.fr
(J. Kanze) writes:

> Well, it is supported in other languages.  But I agree that it will not
> be in C++, and should not be there, for an entirely different reason.
> What happens to such strings when you change locale?  (In practice, they
> are only good for debugging because of this.  And any decent debugger
> will be able to display the information without the table in the
> compiler.)

It is true that any decent debugger should be able to display it.  But, I
often write debug code in my programs (for instance, to display complicated
data structures in an intelligent fashion) that a debugger *cannot* display
as well because it doesn't know the details of the structures.
Furthermore, there are often times when the debug code gets executed
without a debugger being used.

In fact, our debugger even has a mechanism that allows you to load
additional object code into a running program, partly so that you can write
custom debug functions like this and call them from the debugger!

But I disagree with the statement that "these are only good for debugging
because [they cannot be internationalized]".  As a case in point, consider
a C++ compiler that had an enum for all the C++ keywords.  Will those
keywords change when the compiler is internationalized?  No.  Wouldn't it
be nice if the enum names could be automatically turned into strings for
things like error messages?  (Okay, you might have to massage the strings
because the enum values are not spelled exactly like the keywords, but you
might use enum values like KWD_const, KWD_namespace, etc.)

Programs that have a command language (like a debugger perhaps?) also
frequently have enums for all the commands they accept.  Again, the
spelling is not usually affected by internationalization, and it is common
to translate between enum value and the string version.

> What happens to such strings when you change locale?

Why is this a problem?  I wouldn't expect *anything* to happen to them.

> Now this is going to be really fun to maintain.

Exactly why it would be better for this to be built into the language.

> What happens when the
> program is prepared for internationalization, and the translater
> modifies the strings?

If it were built into the language, he wouldn't do that, would he? :-)

-- 
Bill Leonard
Harris Computer Systems Corporation
2101 W. Cypress Creek Road
Fort Lauderdale, FL  33309
Bill.Leonard@mail.hcsc.com

These opinions and statements are my own and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions or positions of Harris Computer Systems Corporation.

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