Feature Request: More customizable terms

[Christopher Hicks]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Shane H. W. Travis wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Christian Robottom Reis wrote:
>> I can remember participating in the discussion, and at the time I
>> concurred it was a slippery slope (and isn't it? Have you tried
>> maintaining templates where all phrases are put together dynamically from
>> bits in terms?). I am open to changing my mind if enough people and
>> rationale is provided to justify this.
>
> I won't argue *at all* that there are inherent difficulties in this process,
> and that it could lead to problems. For this reason, it should be done well,
> and carefully, and with careful review. And maybe you're right, and it
> shouldn't be done at all... but then why was it done with 'bug'? The
> slippery slope started there, not here. Given that it's been done once, it
> seems reasonable (to an outsider, anyway) that it can be done again.

There are a variety of solutions for what I call "string externalization". 
Its totally necessary for any software that expect to be 
internationalized.  It makes the code a bit more verbose, but usually the 
token that replaces a given string can include a comment which explains 
what that terms is by default or what it means or whatever.  Tools for 
automatically doing a conversion into a string externalized format are 
available for a variety of languages and since we all know Perl are the 
sort of thing that can be whipped out with our eyes closed.

> When Someone In Charge makes a casual suggestion 'Make a patch; it 
> should be easy," then that's almost implicit permission/suggestion to do 
> so. Maybe some don't perceive it that way, but that's how people who are 
> not part of the 'inner circle' see it -- sort of like being 
> pre-approved.

And Kiko isn't the only person who's ever done this in the bugzilla 
context.  Dave told me ages ago to make a patch for task management. 
Subsequent indications were that this wasn't what several other folks 
wanted to see go into bugzilla.  A coherent vision for bugzilla seems to 
be severely lacking and so it causes lots of conversations that would be 
unnecessary if we could point to a vision statement and say "this is part 
of getting to where we want to be" or "that's not part of getting to where 
we want to be".  I'd be willing to wait a few months on the next release 
if we could say "this is where bugzilla is going to get eventually".

-- 
</chris>

"Fans of Mozilla's free, open-source Firefox browser make the
ardent Apple faithful look like a bunch of slackers."
- Rebecca Lieb at clickz.com