Re: Is translating server messages really worth it?

Daniel Gustafsson <daniel(at)yesql(dot)se> writes:
> On 4 Oct 2023, at 11:10, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org> wrote:
>> ... I'm not sure how that would work, however.

> Neither do I, I need to educate myself more on the translation infra and
> process in order to have a better idea if it's at all feasible. I am
> interested in making it easier to contribute a new translation, or reboot a
> stale one, and lowering the overall requirement while keeping the requirement
> high on the most relevant bits seem like a way forward.

Drive-by comment: one way to reduce the workload is to be more
aggressive about questioning which messages need to be translated
at all. We have mechanisms for indicating which server messages
are worthy of translation (use errmsg_internal, or just use elog,
when it's not), but few people think hard about when to use them.
(I sure don't.) I'm not sure if there's a corresponding mechanism
for our client programs, but probably there should be.

Maybe it'd be worth making a sweep to find messages that we don't
really think the average user will ever see, and marking those
as not to be translated. Then going forward, we'd have to have
a policy that people should think about that when writing new
errors.

I'm not sure how this would play into the upthread point about
regulatory compliance. If there's somebody out there who has a hard
requirement for 100% translation, I'm afraid we will never satisfy
that. But a deliberate policy of only translating messages we think
are likely to show up in normal use might fall foul of policies that
are okay with our current level of effort.

regards, tom lane