Re: [PATCH 2/3] archive: implement protocol v2 archive command

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:

>>> I think though that instead of doing setlocale() it would be better to
>>> pass some flag saying we're operating in a machine-readable mode, and
>>> then we'd (as part of the protocol defintion) say we're going to emit
>>> GIT_ERR_UPLOAD_ARCHIVE_EXPECTED_DELIM_PACKET or whatever.
>>
>> I think you're suggesting client-side message generation, and that is
>> one way to handle internationalization of server output.
>>
>> The main downside is when the server really does want to provide a
>> custom error message.  For that, we'd need
>>
>>  1. To propagate LANG to the server, so it knows what human language
>>     to generate messages in.
>>
>>  2. On the server side, to produce messages in that language if
>>     available, with an appropriate fallback if not.
>
> That is one way to do so, but it does not have to be the only way, I
> would think.  You can send a machine parsable message in pieces, and
> assemble the parts of speech into a message at the receiving end.
> Like sending a msgid to identify an entry in the .pot file, and
> values to be filled in.

That works if the same party controls the client and server and the
client is up to date enough to know about every message the server
would want to send.

It doesn't work for
- hooks
- alternate server implementations
- messages involved in an emergency fix
- ... etc ...

Don't get me wrong: for messages with a machine as an audience, error
codes or similar structured errors are a great way to go, and getting
client-side generation of messages for humans (not to mention styling,
etc) are a nice bonus there.  I stand by what's in the message you're
replying to, though: if we actually want to be able to consistently
provide useful messages to people who do not like to read English,
then client-side generation won't get us all the way there.

Jonathan