Re: comments/string changes and issues with dpkg's messages

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

Martin Quinson writes ("Re: comments/string changes and issues with dpkg's messages"):
> But maybe the problem is that they should first get translated from geek to
> regular english? 
> 
> What about changing "cannot stat %s" to "cannot access %s"? I know it loses
> a bit of information, but does it really matter?

Yes, it does matter.  If you're the sysadmin trying to debug
something, then knowing exactly which system call failed is important.

Note that ohshite is used _both_ for common errors and for extremely
rare ones.  I have tried to make the common errors print readily
comprehensible messages like `could not delete ....'.  But rare and
implausible errors need more detail.

> Or, in lib/compat.c around line 50, do you really need to know which syscall
> failed? If yes, what about changing 
>     if (fseek(file,0,0)) 
>       ohshite(_("unable to rewind at start of vsnprintf"));

Perhaps an alternative would be simply not to translate some of these
messages.  This particular message is a good example of a situation
that I wouldn't expect ever to happen.  (The _(...) stuff was added to
dpkg after it left my hands, and it seems to have been done uniformly
to all of the error messages.)

As a good rule of thumb, there is no point translating an
incomprehensible English message :-).

Ian.