Subject: Re: localization formats proposal
From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jul 17 2001 - 23:31:05 CDT
--- Karl Ove Hufthammer <huftis@bigfoot.com> wrote: >
ty 17 jul 2001 17:09:53, Dom Lachowicz
> <dominicl@seas.upenn.edu>:
>
> >> Yes, but how spell checking works should in *no*
> way be
> >> dependant on the current locale.
> >
> > I would disagree with this assessment, and I will
> explain why:
> >
> > A user?s locale is a very good indicator of one?s
> default
> > authoring language.
>
> Yes. (Though I think quite a few people write
> 'en-US' documents,
> even if they're using a different locale.)
I don't dispute for a moment that people do do this.
I will dispute why they do this. They don't do this
because of choice - they do it because of lack of
choice. Most software seems to come from the US and
sets the default to en-US. Most non-English
speakers, when they choose "English" to use from a
list, are given "en-US" even in cases when en-GB
makes more sense. "Just Working" doesn't mean
"Just en-US" it means make the most logical choice
that would satisfy most users. If we have the
ability to "Just Satisfy" most English users, we
should. There's no need for AbiWord to dumb down
to "English usually means US English" just because
more poorly designed software has set this bad
precedent in the past.
Hey that was almost a rant (-;
> > In the uncommon cases, our current scheme allows
> the user to
> > override the default dictionary either by:
> > 1) the preferences dialog
> > 2) the language dialog
>
> Isn't the 'default' dictionary tied to the language
> of the text?
> Or, in other words, isn't the default language for
> new documents
> based on the current locale/preferences.
>
> > We want to make things work ?out of the box? for
> as many
> > people as possible, and I think that mapping a
> user?s locale
> > to a particular dictionary is a good idea, unless
> someone
> > convinces me otherwise.
>
> Mapping the users' locale to the default language
> for new
> documents is a good idea. Mapping a locale to a
> dictionary is IMO
> a bad idea. If text in a document is marked to be in
> a different
> language than it *is*, this will lead to problems.
I still agree. But I also agree in our "Just Work"
policy. When we start up, we should give the user
the choice of no spell-checking due to unavailable
dictionary or using a slightly differnet English
dictionary. Not giving a choice and not working is,
IMHO, a worse idea. Defaulting always to en-US is
also a worse idea.
Andrew Dunbar.
=====
http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net
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