[Python-Dev] PEP 215 redux: toward a simplified consensus?

Paul Prescod paul@prescod.net
Mon, 25 Feb 2002 15:29:39 -0800


Skip Montanaro wrote:
> 
> >>>>> "Paul" == Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net> writes:
> 
>     Paul> "Martin v. Loewis" wrote:
>     >> I could not accept any solution that cannot offer anything but this.
>     >> This kind of interpolation is plain broken.
> 
>     Paul> How so? I need more info to go on.
> 
> I have no direct experience with text translation, but in this internet day
> and age, it seems to me that a change to the language shouldn't make
> internationalization more difficult than it already is.  

I've proposed that whereas today you add a "_( )" in the future you
would add "_( )" and remove "$" if it happens to occur at the start of
the string. If the string didn't start with a "$" you might also have to
scan to see if it contains one. In that case you double it up.

This doesn't make internationalization more difficult. As proof I
present mailman, which *already* does the interpolation I ask for as a
feature of its implementation of "_()". All I'm asking is that mailman's
interpolation feature ALSO be available under a simplified syntax at
compile time.

 Paul Prescod