AMC merge patch #2

Pavel Roskin proski at gnu.org
Wed Feb 12 05:33:48 UTC 2003


Hello!

On Tue, 11 Feb 2003, bulia byak wrote:

> > I have never heard of ESP.
>
> Pavel, if you are contacted by a person who volunteers to provide
> a translation of mc into some Tarabarian language, would you accept
> that contribution? I think you would, even though you may have
> "never heard" of that language before and cannot check the accuracy
> of the translation.
>
> Why not apply the same approach here? Especially given that such
> additions are very unlikely to break anything else in mc.

I would apply a translation if the name of the language is standard and
there is no chance for confusion or conflict with another language.

ESP can be an archive for some users and, say, "extendable server pages"
for others.  There is no official registry of all file extensions.

What is more important, incorrect translation won't cause data loss unless
there is a malicious intent of the translator (i.e. "OK" is translated as
"Cancel" and vice versa).  On the other hand, there have been credible
reports of zip files damaged by viewing them in mc.

Finally, the *.po files are standardized, whereas the interface of the
extfs scripts is not.  What if the future versions of mc will require a
stricter format for the date?  Somebody will have to re-check the
archivers.  It takes time to find and compile them.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin



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