So maketext allows the translator to not only translate phrases, but  
put in Perl code to generate them. Fine.

But most translators are not hackers and vice versa. And going with  
an established system has its merits even though it may be not quite  
perfect (although gettext actually does handle multiple plural  
forms). There is a whole lot of infrastructure built around gettext  
already. At least that's why we went with gettext for Etoys now  
(https://translations.launchpad.net/etoys/).

- Bert -

On Oct 12, 2007, at 20:22 , Jason Johnson wrote:

> Ok, here is a better link:
>
> http://search.cpan.org/~petdance/Locale-Maketext-1.10/lib/Locale/ 
> Maketext/TPJ13.pod
>
> On 10/12/07, Jason Johnson <jason.johnson.081 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> You didn't look at the link. :)  The point is that gettext is only
>> useful in the most trivial of cases.  From a functional programming
>> point of view, a mapping from one language to another can't always be
>> expressed as a simple string translation.  In many cases it has to be
>> a function, and that's what this library allows you to do.
>>
>> On 10/12/07, Paolo Bonzini <bonzini at gnu.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does anyone know of anything like this for Squeak?  I'm sure  
>>>> something
>>>> like this could be made much more powerful and elegant in ST.
>>>>
>>>> If there isn't, then this would be a good project for someone.   
>>>> This
>>>> kind of thing will get more and more important on the web. (and  
>>>> yes, I
>>>> will do it myself if no one else does by the time I get around  
>>>> to it
>>>> :).
>>>
>>> Gettext is available for GNU Smalltalk, it should not be hard to  
>>> port it.
>>>
>>> Paolo
>>>