[Python-ideas] Fwd: i18n and Python tracebacks

[Mariano Reingart]

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 12:14 PM, Andre Roberge <andre.roberge at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, I did not forward to the list by mistake.
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Andre Roberge <andre.roberge at gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, May 15, 2010 at 12:13 PM
> Subject: Re: [Python-ideas] i18n and Python tracebacks
> To: Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net>
>
> On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 15 May 2010 11:02:35 -0300
>> Andre Roberge <andre.roberge at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > >>> 1/0
>> > Suivi d'erreur (appel le plus récent en dernier) :
>> >   Fichier "<stdin>", à la ligne 1, dans <module>
>> > ZeroDivisionError: division entière ou modulo par zéro
>>
>> I'm not sure it's a good idea. The fact that these messages are always
>> in English makes it possible:
>> - to share them with other developers in order to get help
>> - to parse them in order to assert certain kind of errors
>>
>> These messages are primarily meant for developers, not users.
>
> I think you forget students (including one ones) that have to deal with such
> messages.

Yes, that our case here in Argentina too.

> Imagine you could start python with
>
> python --lang="en" your_script.py
>
> This would easily allow to share tracebacks with developers to get help.

Even easier, it could be allowed to change LC_MESSAGES back to English
at runtime or via shell environment variable before starting python,
see:
http://mx.grulic.org.ar/lurker/message/20100513.163151.1611cd68.es.html

That's the way other software does it (like PostgreSQL as I said
earlier), no new command line options or special development would be
required.

>> (as a sidenote, I regularly get annoyed by gcc's "translated" error
>> messages -- especially how crappy the French translation often is.
>> It's always better to get a good English error message than a horrible
>> French one)
>
> True ...  I know I'd choose English as a default myself  for Python (even
> though, like you I believe, French is my first language).  *But*, for
> beginners, this would be, I think, a great option.

I think so.

BTW, with colaborative online translation tools like Pootle, it can be
reviewed easily to fix bad translations.

Best regards,

Mariano Reingart
http://www.python.org.ar
http://www.sistemasagiles.com.ar
http://reingart.blogspot.com