Re: [boost] [locale] Formal review of Boost.Locale library EXTENDED

Subject: Re: [boost] [locale] Formal review of Boost.Locale library EXTENDED
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-04-19 21:54:49

On 4/19/2011 9:05 AM, Artyom wrote:
>> From: Edward Diener<eldiener_at_[hidden]>
>> On 4/19/2011 3:17 AM, Matus Chochlik wrote:
>>> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 2:10  AM, Edward Diener<eldiener_at_[hidden]>
>> wrote:
>>>> On 4/18/2011 9:53 AM, Paul A. Bristow wrote:
>>>>
>>>> My personal objection to Gnu gettext and its English bias has  nothing to
> do
>>>> with any desire myself to use a language other than  English in order to
>>>> communicate, since English ( or perhaps  Americanese ) is the language of
>> the
>>>> country in which I was born,  but nearly everything to do with my sense of
>>>> the problems of  translating even computer program phraseology from one
>>>> language to  another without complicating things by having to put some
> other
>>>>   language, even a very popular one, in the middle.
>>>>
>>>> Was  that a single sentence ? I wonder if it can be translated to Japanese
> ?
>>>
>>> These are all valid points Speaking in a particular language  means
>>> to be thinking in a certain way and many things can be lost in the
>> translation.
>>> But I don't see above any solutions to the actual  problem.
>>>
>>>>  From how I see it there are several ways to handle  this:
>>>
>>> 1) Stick to English phrases
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>> Take your pick :-)
>>
>> My pick is to use  what the language currently provides,
>> which is wchar_t, which can represent  UTF-16,
>
> No it can not represent UTF-16, it represents
> either UTF-32 (on most platforms around) or UTF-16
> (on one specific platform Microsoft Windows).

Then clearly it can represent UTF-16.

>
>> a popular Unicode variant which also happens to be the standard for wide
>> characters on Windows,
>> which just happens to be the dominant operating system in  the world ( by alot
>> ) in terms of end-users.
>>
>
> That is questionable statement especially
> that there are so much iPhones, Andriods,
> Servers and Services not using
> Windows but directly communicating with
> end user.
>
> But your statement has nothing to do with
> support of Unicode in C++ world
>
>> What I object  to is not the way that
>> Locale currently works but that the
>> author of the library  seems to have a
>> closed mind about this issue. He thinks
>> that UTF-8 must be the  standard because
>> it is what Linux uses,
>
> I bake your pardon?

Apologies. I should not have said that you have a closed mind about this 
issue.

>
> UTF-8 is standard far beyond what
> Linux is uses.

A standard for what ? There are three Unicode character sets which are 
generally used, UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32. I can not understand why you 
think one of them is some sort of standard for something.

>
> I suggest to study a facts about it
> a little.
>
> Buzzwords: xml, web, Unicode and more
> and more and more.

Buzzwords mean nothing. All three Unicode character sets can be used in 
xml, web pages, and Unicode. Each one is just another encoding.

>
> About UTF-16, I assume you are not
> familiar with this:
>
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1049947/should-utf-16-be-considered-harmful

The criticism of UTF-16 in the above applies equally to UTF-8 and UTF-32 
as far as I can see.

>
> Despite this Boost.Locale fully supports UTF-16/wchar_t on
> windows.

I am truly glad it does.

>
>> and he thinks  that everyone must
>> follow  the way that gnu gettext
>> does things because that also
>> comes from the Linux  world about
>> which he is knowledgable.
>>
>> Even when it is pointed out
>> to him the  flaw in gnu gettext
>> which forces other languages to
>> go through English to be  translated,
>> he feels that this is correct on the
>> basis that English is the  dominant
>> language in computer programming,
>> so every programmer must know it to
>> write computer programmers in C++.
>
> - How many translation system do you know?
> - How many have you tested?
> - How many have you really used?
> - How many programs have you ever localized,
>    translated?
>
> All systems use English as the base as
> it is the best practice.

That's a pretty bald statement buy I do not think it is true. But even 
if it were, why should everybody doing something one way be proof that 
that way is best ? I would much rather pursue a technical solution that 
I felt was best even if no one else thought so.

>
>
>> [snip]
>> Claiming that all programmers  must
>> know English to do programming,
>> or that translating through English
>> is a  rote job I also find absurd.
>> [snip]
>
> Despite the fact that it is what is done
> all over the world very successfully.

I am glad you feel it is always done very successfully. But that is 
hardly a relevant statement when looking at a technical issue.

Do not misunderstand me. I can understand your making the choice you 
have regarding translation in Locale. It is certainly easier using what 
already exists to some extent than having to create your own solution 
completely from scratch. But I do think you should at least realize that 
the dependence on English is going to keep programmers from countries 
where English is not well known from using that aspect of your library.