Fwd: Chat with Marcos Caceres

9:01 AM me: hey, you won't like this, but... I think we botched the
l10n stuff :). The problem is that the design is based on individual
resources, which is wrong. Negotiation should really be done at the
Package level. This is one of those things where thinking HTTPish
screws you over. A user thinks about a web application or widget as a
single resource. That there are multiple subresources isn't
interesting to a user. So the right algorithm is: 1. collect the full
list of all locales for which the package is partially localized. 2.
build the list of user requested locales using the algorithm we
defined. 3. Use the first matching locale between (1) and (2). 4. Deal
with fall back. I think 4 involves telling Authors that if they want
to be able to use a /locales/en/ image in /locales/en-us/ then they
need a /locales/en-us/images.css that pulls in /locales/en/bird.jpg --
however, it's probably best just not to allow it at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinellidae is something I encountered
@HEL flying to the F2F, I call it a Lady Bug, but the label (embedded
in what I'll call a "picture" said "Lady Bird", and I though it was a
mistake, so i took a "photo" of it to post to my friends. If I posted
the photo as /en/, the GB/AU/... friends would not get it). Similarly,
Nokia has this gem:
http://www.webwizardry.net/~timeless/w7/nokia%20communication%20centre%20-%20Use%20the%20Calendar%20view%20in%20Nokia%20Communication%20Center%20to%20manage%20your%20device%20calendar%20for%20example%20by%20creating%20editing%20or%20deleting%20calendar%20entries.png
which is because they tried to be clever about sharing a picture
between the en-GB installer and the en-US installer.
  The results are terribly embarrassing
9:02 AM Put another way. The goal of localization should be twofold:
1. allow the user to express a preference. 2. enable the author not to
make the mistakes that Nokia has made
9:03 AM mixed content such as my Lady Bug/Bird example and Nokia's
myriad examples (the classic one being their Flag example, url
available for archival purposes later; the more modern example being
centre/center).

Received on Thursday, 18 June 2009 13:27:18 UTC