Re: gettext 0.11.3b2: autopoint problems

[Paul D. Smith]

%% Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:

  >> 1) The construct does not properly modify - to _; instead of
  >> "gettext_0_11_3_pre2" (which is what I think I need based on the
  >> current labels) I get "gettext-0_11_3-pre2".

  bh> There is nothing wrong with that. Dashes are valid characters in
  bh> cvs tags.

Yes.  I note, though, that all the current tags on gettext use
underscore between "gettext" and the version: gettext_0_11_1.  Perhaps
you were planning on changing the tag naming convention for gettext, in
which case never mind :).

  >> 2) There is no label applied to the CVS tree for this pretest release.
  >> In fact I don't think there's a label applied for the
  >> gettext-0.11.2 release either.

  bh> There will be cvs labels for all official gettext releases; you
  bh> only get the problem because you are using the snapshot.

OK, but it will be difficult to test prereleases if autopoint requires
them to be labeled :).

  >> requiring that you _must_ have successful net access to the CVS
  >> repository before you can build _IS_ a big problem:

  bh> That was not intentional; I'll be 'unset'ting sufficiently many
  bh> environment variables to avoid this unwanted behaviour.

Ah, cool, thanks!

  >> Again, as with gettextize, I wonder if this isn't a case of the tool
  >> trying to be too smart.  As a maintainer's utility gettext really must
  >> trust the user.  This is not an end-user, newbie-type tool.

  bh> Please read the doc again. 'autopoint' is an automatic tool,
  bh> 'gettextize' is an interactive one. Both are designed to be
  bh> "newbie" safe.

My point is that the audience for gettext itself, in particular these
two parts of gettext, is not newbies but rather package maintainers.
For tools like these being "newbie safe" at the expense of power and
usefulness is not the right tradeoff.  That's just MHO.  Of course if
you can do both so much the better :).

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