[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Is it possible...

[Stig Erik Sandoe <stig@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 14 Nov 1999, Egbert Hinzen wrote:

> > The real problem is gettext; gettext is a simple hack for a
> 
> That's right, but IMHO it's possible to work around.
> 
> Your idea is better, but only if used from the beginning. I don't think
> that it makes sense to rewrite all the game.

I guess you're right. :)
 
However it was an interesting experience to use gettext for such a
project and see the problems first-hand. I have also downloaded
Xconq (which Stan mentioned) to see the approach used there. I
will probably make an attempt to make a better scheme than
gettext, which can be used in one of my own projects for
localisation.

> I consider the German translation as Beta, meaning you have to see the
> phrases in context to make further improvements. And I detected *NO*
> phrase which couldn't be translated. Maybe I overlooked one or another...
> but I think it will be easier to change the original in this special cases
> only.

My norwegian translation is basically at alpha-stage and things will
probably evolve, e.g to find words of one gender if possible to
avoid problems in pronouns/verbs/plural forms/etc. It was very
helpful to use your german translation as a parallell and guide.
(And I also hit the "Local Options" bug, but saw your comment in the
 file :)

PS: The %n$s hack (where n is a number) for printf I hadn't seen
    before and it wasn't in my K&R either, but it was really cool. :)

------------------------------------------------------------------
Stig Erik Sandoe     stig@xxxxxxxxx    http://www.ii.uib.no/~stig/