Re: kernel support for non-English user messages

Linus Torvalds
2003-04-10T17:24:11Z

On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Riley Williams wrote:
>
> Whilst I agree with the general sentiments above, any such code would
> require some sort of code attached to each message for it to look up,

No.

I've used VMS, and error code number encoding is a total heap of crap.

If you can't translate the message based on the _message_, then don't
bother. I'm not adding codes for different errors, it becomes just an
unreadable mess, and adds _zero_ to stability or readability, and it's
horrible for maintenance - suddenly you need to worry about silly numbers
for anything you print out, so you stop printing stuff or you re-use codes
that don't make sense.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is one of those "good
intentions" things - it sounds like it's a nice helper thing, but it's
nothing but a load of maintenance headaches and causes horrible printout
headaches.

Linus