On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 09:38:16PM -0200, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
On Thu, 08 Nov 2001, ESR wrote:
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh(_at_)debian(_dot_)org>:
[...]
--with-included-gettext ...
[...]
I understand the value of internationalization. It is just that I am
so fed up with this garbage that the pain does not seem worth the
value. And don't bother trying to raise my perceived value of i18n
because my disgust with gettext is effectively infinite :-(.
I'll butt in here to add my $0.02. A "good" gettext package, e.g.,
GNU gettext 0.10.35, once installed on your system is a wonderful thing
to have. (I know; it is a must for some of my students to have Japanese
messages.) What burns me to no end, however, is why gettext has the
gall to force itself on every package that wants NLS, that "--with-included
-gettext" configure option. Just like practically every other supporting
library, configure should just determine whether or not the headers and
libraries are in place, and if not, not offer support. Really, what's the
difference between adding say bzip2 support to some program and adding
gettext support. Or, in the case of fetchmail, personally I'm biased to
using the bind resolver, and your configure script allows me that freedom.
opposite way, though. If it has no i18n support, it is not worth the effort
of using -- because they effectively would need a dictionary to do so.
Absolutely. Please above all keep the --enable-nls option. However, I'd
prefer that the directories intl/ and po/ and the file ABOUT-NLS just went
away (since I already have them in the gettext package -- and dozens of other
packages that have be duped into thinking they need them). Translations
themselves are often out of date, and best obtained from the central repository
in Montreal or done by yourself.
henry nelson