Tools for manipulating message catalogs

[Scott E. Preece]

In article <1991Apr10.122642.3991 at dg-rtp.dg.com> eliot at chutney.rtp.dg.com (Topher Eliot) writes:
| To reiterate:  when one is writing an application, every time one creates a
| new message, it should be added to the message catalog, a message number should
| be created for it, that message number should be hard-coded into the
| application source code, and then it should stay that way until doomsday.
| You should never WANT automatic numbering of your messages.
|...
| Have I made my point clear? Would anyone care to point out flaws in my logic?
| Does anyone still think that a tool to create a .h file out of a message
| catalog is useful?
---
Well, actually, I still think the use of symbolic names makes code
reading easier (and code reading is critical to delivered quality).  I
also think that use of symbolic names is in no way counter to the
principle of never changing existing message number assignments; just
don't do it.  Finally, an automatic tool would be useful for the
important case of the first version of a program, even if subsequent
versions need to maintained manually (though, actually, I think the
synchronization problem would be better addressed in other ways, like
keeping the source for the message catalog in a development environment
that linked it to the code and generated the new catalog as part of the
normal release process; I tend to think that the safest way to keep
things synchronized is to always reissue them together (surely you're
going to test the whole message catalog when you release a new version,
anyway, right? :-)).

scott
--
scott preece
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