Re: [PATCH] Redirect on Error

At 03:21 PM 11/25/2002 -0500, Sterling Hughes wrote:

    If this thread was about error messages of a C compiler, I
    would agree that users can be expected to understand English.
    That is a completely different level you are dealing with then.
    However, PHP needs to take beginners into account.

    Simply assuming that everyone must understand English
    is arrogant.

Whereas assuming that PHP users are too stupid to understand english is not at all arrogant? :)

    PHP is used by people around the world; it is used by many as
    first computer language who just started out to conquer a new
    area of knowledge.  They do not necessarily speak English
    adequatly or are able to make sense of technical English
    terms.

fine - provide documentation / translations for what these error codes mean in the documentation (on a per-translation basis, or in an extra page listing all the translation). php_error_docref() already does this I believe (cookie variable, or just click on the link).

    This issue came up years ago with a certain operating system.
    If localized error messages are provided, they must be
    presented together with a unique message id.  That unique
    token enables people who speak a different language to
    interprete the error code/message and provide support/answers
    as necessary.

Great, I'll look up IE55343 everytime i get a question about an undefined variable. What you're missing is that currently to program PHP, you need a reasonable understanding of english. To my knowledge mandarin does not have the string length, most everything in the programming world is in english, therefore, a basic understanding of english becomes a prerequisite. Educate users to speak the base amount of english required, I18N'ing the language is just going to lead to headaches from a user perspective (incorrect translations, slower performance, translations for english speakers) and a developer perspective (having to lookup tokens, understanding another language, getting bug reports with horrible error messages). The whole i18n thing can be solved by just listing the translations of the error codes on the doc page, let's do that, instead of bloating the PHP infrastructure.

I'm 100% with Sterling on this one. Andi