On Monday 16 Nov 2009 1:23:55 pm Philip Tellis wrote:
actually most Indian developers add i18n later, very few i18n their code by default. When 'bolting' i18n into their code, errors creep in which are only noticed by the translator. Once the coders get into the habit, then these
FWIW, i18n was added into Everybuddy about 3 years after it was first developed and Ayttm inherited that code. The code then moved from developer to developer, not all of whom understand everything (or anything) about i18n. For the most part the project has always had 1-1.5 developers working on it unlike some larger projects that have 6-8 full time developers and tens of part time contributors. Given this, a manual review has always been impossible. One just takes what one gets and hopes someone sends in a patch or explains the problems clearly.
I understand the constraints you are working under - but my own mantra is that a coder who does not i18n'ise his code while he is writing it is unfit to write code. (this has been true for the last 5-6 years at least). Yet if I took a poll on this list - or on the Chennai LUG list where they claim to be more passionate about language, I would warrant that very few coders would put their hands up (if any at all). That said I appreciate the huge amount of headache adding i18n to an older app - I have done it a couple of times, and would hate to do it again.