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+WEBVTT captioned by brandelune and bhavin192

+

+NOTE Introduction

+

+00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.400

+Hello everyone, I am Jean-Christophe Helary,

+

+00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:09.680

+I live in Japan, and I'm a translator.

+

+00:09.680 --> 00:00:12.633

+Here is my second presentation on this very

+

+00:00:12.633 --> 00:00:15.300

+prestigious stage that is the Emacs conference.

+

+00:00:15.300 --> 00:00:18.367

+Following my "Let's Translate the 2 million words

+

+00:00:18.367 --> 00:00:21.767

+in the Emacs manual" in 2021, my topic this year,

+

+00:00:21.767 --> 00:00:25.167

+always related to translation, is

+

+00:00:25.167 --> 00:00:28.400

+pre-localizing Emacs or much less pretentiously,

+

+00:00:28.400 --> 00:00:31.933

+"Just make sure that your strings don't mix up plurals".

+

+NOTE Usage of package.el

+

+00:00:31.933 --> 00:00:36.133

+So, for some reason I resumed Emacs use

+

+00:00:36.133 --> 00:00:39.940

+around 2016, and as I was rediscovering the thing

+

+00:00:39.940 --> 00:00:42.800

+I found really old outline-mode files here

+

+00:00:42.800 --> 00:00:44.033

+and there on my machine.

+

+00:00:44.033 --> 00:00:45.140

+And I started to experiment

+

+00:00:45.140 --> 00:00:47.167

+again and write again with Emacs.

+

+00:00:47.167 --> 00:00:48.564

+I think that at the time,

+

+00:00:48.564 --> 00:00:50.433

+I was coming from Aquamacs and because of

+

+00:00:50.433 --> 00:00:53.400

+an integration bug with macOS, I decided

+

+00:00:53.400 --> 00:00:55.440

+to check what was going on in the code.

+

+00:55.440 --> 00:00:59.040

+That was my first official contribution.

+

+NOTE The bug in strings

+

+00:59.040 --> 00:01:02.233

+So as I was happily installing and uninstalling

+

+00:01:02.233 --> 00:01:05.267

+things, I noticed something weird one day.

+

+00:01:05.267 --> 00:01:09.080

+Let me enlarge that picture.

+

+01:09.080 --> 00:01:12.400

+See? And even if I were not a translator,

+

+00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:14.960

+I would not like that string, and obviously

+

+01:14.960 --> 00:01:16.833

+the same bug bites you when the string

+

+00:01:16.833 --> 00:01:20.520

+tells you to erase the package.

+

+01:20.520 --> 00:01:26.720

+Boom, so we agree that we have a problem here.

+

+NOTE Natural language engineering

+

+01:26.720 --> 00:01:29.067

+So, I started to do some spelunking into the code,

+

+00:01:29.067 --> 00:01:31.067

+and at least that was my feeling

+

+00:01:31.067 --> 00:01:33.100

+because I really am not a programmer

+

+00:01:33.100 --> 00:01:37.240

+by any stretch of the imagination.

+

+01:37.240 --> 00:01:39.467

+And what I found was an amazing piece of

+

+00:01:39.467 --> 00:01:41.840

+natural language engineering that was mixing code

+

+01:41.840 --> 00:01:44.267

+with English suffixes and all that,

+

+00:01:44.267 --> 00:01:46.267

+and I could see that the people who had

+

+00:01:46.267 --> 00:01:47.767

+written that code were pretty smart,

+

+00:01:47.767 --> 00:01:49.533

+but had missed a number of edge cases

+

+00:01:49.533 --> 00:01:51.280

+that produced the above bugs.

+

+01:51.280 --> 00:01:53.500

+That was my first experience with

+

+00:01:53.500 --> 00:01:55.033

+all the message related functions,

+

+00:01:55.033 --> 00:01:58.360

+"format", "concat", "message", etc.

+

+01:58.360 --> 00:02:00.433

+But even with my beginner's eyes I could see that

+

+00:02:00.433 --> 00:02:03.040

+something was off because when you want

+

+02:03.040 --> 00:02:06.000

+to produce natural language strings you never ever

+

+00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:08.600

+should use "replace-regex-in-string" to

+

+02:08.600 --> 00:02:11.067

+add an "ing" or an "ed" suffix

+

+00:02:11.067 --> 00:02:12.980

+to change the mode of a sentence.

+

+02:12.980 --> 00:02:16.840

+But that's what I was seeing was happening.

+

+NOTE More than a missed plural

+

+02:16.840 --> 00:02:20.333

+So, what we had to deal with here

+

+00:02:20.333 --> 00:02:22.220

+was way more than just a missed plural.

+

+02:22.220 --> 00:02:24.000

+It was an attempt at engineering all

+

+00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:26.400

+the message strings destined to the user

+

+00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:28.567

+with the smart code that was making assumptions

+

+00:02:28.567 --> 00:02:30.067

+on the structure of words,

+

+00:02:30.067 --> 00:02:33.220

+and in the localization world that's a big no-no.

+

+02:33.220 --> 00:02:36.667

+I'm a translator, and such UI strings issues

+

+00:02:36.667 --> 00:02:38.433

+have been sorted out decades ago.

+

+00:02:38.433 --> 00:02:41.320

+So I was a bit shocked.

+

+NOTE The final patch

+

+02:41.320 --> 00:02:43.533

+The final patch took me about a year to write,

+

+00:02:43.533 --> 00:02:45.380

+because I'm slow, because I needed to verify

+

+02:45.380 --> 00:02:47.167

+and understand a lot, because there are

+

+00:02:47.167 --> 00:02:49.100

+plenty of rules and plenty of people who are

+

+00:02:49.100 --> 00:02:51.433

+explaining you very nicely what the rules are,

+

+00:02:51.433 --> 00:02:53.733

+because I have kids, and because the

+

+00:02:53.733 --> 00:02:55.600

+Emacs development list is such a cool place to be

+

+00:02:55.600 --> 00:02:58.560

+that you often forget why you're there sometimes.

+

+02:58.560 --> 00:03:01.800

+Anyway, for people who can't click on a video,

+

+00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:03.640

+and I can't either, here are the relevant

+

+03:03.640 --> 00:03:05.840

+parts with some short comments.

+

+03:05.840 --> 00:03:07.800

+I'll be talking with localization in mind,

+

+00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:09.640

+knowing full well that Emacs localization

+

+03:09.640 --> 00:03:12.800

+is not on the map at the moment.

+

+03:12.800 --> 00:03:14.167

+So first, there is this thing

+

+00:03:14.167 --> 00:03:15.520

+about "format" and "concat".

+

+03:15.520 --> 00:03:17.800

+And if I remember correctly,

+

+00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:20.300

+"format" is better for user-facing things,

+

+00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:25.160

+and "concat" is better for internal things.

+

+03:25.160 --> 00:03:26.800

+Here, there are two things.

+

+03:26.800 --> 00:03:28.800

+First, a rule that we have when we prepare

+

+00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:30.700

+strings that need to be localized is

+

+00:03:30.700 --> 00:03:33.333

+never ever make assumptions on the way

+

+00:03:33.333 --> 00:03:35.780

+numbers are expressed in the language.

+

+03:35.780 --> 00:03:37.067

+Here, the assumption is that

+

+00:03:37.067 --> 00:03:40.000

+we have either a singular or plural form,

+

+00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:42.040

+and that's not always the case.

+

+03:42.040 --> 00:03:44.067

+That usually means that you should externalize

+

+00:03:44.067 --> 00:03:48.280

+numbers and find a generic way to express them.

+

+03:48.280 --> 00:03:50.833

+So it makes for slightly less natural

+

+00:03:50.833 --> 00:03:54.400

+language strings, but it's better anyway.

+

+03:54.400 --> 00:03:56.667

+Then we have that comma there that's trying

+

+00:03:56.667 --> 00:03:58.167

+to be externalized and that's weird,

+

+00:03:58.167 --> 00:04:02.620

+so I put it back into the sentence.

+

+04:02.620 --> 00:04:04.967

+Here we have another construct, or two rather,

+

+00:04:04.967 --> 00:04:06.960

+that really should not be used like this.

+

+04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.033

+It's "prin1" that uses quoting characters,

+

+00:04:10.033 --> 00:04:12.480

+just like "print", and "princ" that does not.

+

+04:12.480 --> 00:04:15.400

+And you see why they were combined together.

+

+04:15.400 --> 00:04:17.133

+And they were both trying to be really smart

+

+00:04:17.133 --> 00:04:19.780

+about which article to put in front of a vowel.

+

+04:19.780 --> 00:04:20.960

+And you just don't do that.

+

+04:20.960 --> 00:04:25.000

+You just keep things simple.

+

+04:25.000 --> 00:04:26.633

+Here again, the code is trying to be smart,

+

+00:04:26.633 --> 00:04:28.480

+but it's really not much more efficient than

+

+04:28.480 --> 00:04:34.940

+plainly stating what you want.

+

+04:34.940 --> 00:04:36.500

+And here again, we have "concat" things

+

+00:04:36.500 --> 00:04:40.367

+that we could just use to plainly state

+

+00:04:40.367 --> 00:04:41.980

+what we want to state.

+

+04:41.980 --> 00:04:49.880

+So, instead of "concat" I just put a "message".

+

+04:49.880 --> 00:04:52.260

+And here we have something that's very cute.

+

+04:52.260 --> 00:04:54.540

+It's a computerized plural.

+

+04:54.540 --> 00:04:55.700

+Here again, assuming that

+

+00:04:55.700 --> 00:04:58.640

+there are only plural or singular forms.

+

+04:58.640 --> 00:05:00.867

+But the end string is not that much more natural

+

+00:05:00.867 --> 00:05:02.700

+than the fix, the code is less efficient

+

+00:05:02.700 --> 00:05:07.760

+and is harder to understand.

+

+05:07.760 --> 00:05:09.433

+Here again, the code is trying to make

+

+00:05:09.433 --> 00:05:13.520

+smart things where it could be much simpler.

+

+05:13.520 --> 00:05:14.667

+That is the part where you get the

+

+00:05:14.667 --> 00:05:19.480

+number of packages and their names.

+

+05:19.480 --> 00:05:22.067

+Here the whole sentence with the semicolons

+

+00:05:22.067 --> 00:05:26.333

+and the question mark is split in parts,

+

+00:05:26.333 --> 00:05:29.180

+between which something will be inserted.

+

+05:29.180 --> 00:05:34.240

+That's really ugly and difficult to read.

+

+05:34.240 --> 00:05:37.700

+Here again, another "ing" waiting to be

+

+00:05:37.700 --> 00:05:44.840

+regex-inserted into the code.

+

+05:44.840 --> 00:05:46.633

+And here at last, we get to the point

+

+00:05:46.633 --> 00:05:48.760

+where everything started.

+

+05:48.760 --> 00:05:50.833

+And you can see that unlike in the other spots,

+

+00:05:50.833 --> 00:05:52.400

+there is no possibility for the expression

+

+05:52.400 --> 00:05:54.680

+to be singular.

+

+05:54.680 --> 00:05:57.600

+So, I guess that if it hadn't been for that bug,

+

+00:05:57.600 --> 00:05:59.320

+I would not have found the other items,

+

+05:59.320 --> 00:06:01.033

+and we would be left with code that works,

+

+00:06:01.033 --> 00:06:02.033

+of course, but that is

+

+00:06:02.033 --> 00:06:06.020

+harder to understand, and maintain.

+

+06:06.020 --> 00:06:08.333

+Last but not least, a last version of

+

+00:06:08.333 --> 00:06:10.920

+"just plainly state what you mean to state".

+

+06:10.920 --> 00:06:14.880

+Keep it simple.

+

+NOTE "What did I learn, and how did I learn it?"

+

+06:14.880 --> 00:06:19.267

+So first, we have this wonderful CONTRIBUTE file

+

+00:06:19.267 --> 00:06:21.267

+that is very explicit about

+

+00:06:21.267 --> 00:06:23.520

+how we must proceed when contributing code.

+

+06:23.520 --> 00:06:25.233

+So, that's really the first place

+

+00:06:25.233 --> 00:06:27.760

+that we should all read.

+

+06:27.760 --> 00:06:29.333

+The README file is pretty cool too,

+

+00:06:29.333 --> 00:06:30.967

+especially at the beginning of the process,

+

+00:06:30.967 --> 00:06:31.867

+when you're not sure whether

+

+00:06:31.867 --> 00:06:36.240

+you want to fix that bug or just report it.

+

+NOTE Useful packages

+

+06:36.240 --> 00:06:37.920

+And then we've got packages.

+

+06:37.920 --> 00:06:39.900

+We've got a number of packages that are really

+

+00:06:39.900 --> 00:06:42.600

+helpful when it comes to reading

+

+00:06:42.600 --> 00:06:45.880

+the information and the manuals.

+

+06:45.880 --> 00:06:48.000

+I'm mentioning three of them here,

+

+00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:53.720

+and I think they are the most important for us.

+

+NOTE Package: helpful

+

+06:53.720 --> 00:06:55.600

+So "helpful" is on the right,

+

+00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:58.667

+and it's overflowing the window with

+

+00:06:58.667 --> 00:07:01.900

+all the contextualized information it provides,

+

+00:07:01.900 --> 00:07:05.280

+and the standard "help" is on the left.

+

+07:05.280 --> 00:07:07.933

+I mean, really there are like two or three

+

+00:07:07.933 --> 00:07:11.567

+screen-full of information in the "helpful" output,

+

+00:07:11.567 --> 00:07:13.233

+so you really only see a part,

+

+00:07:13.233 --> 00:07:16.320

+but I guess if you use it, you know what I'm saying.

+

+07:16.320 --> 00:07:18.867

+What I like the most here is the "view in manual"

+

+00:07:18.867 --> 00:07:21.800

+part, where you can actually click and even get

+

+00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:23.667

+more information that's sometimes

+

+00:07:23.667 --> 00:07:28.400

+easier to read and understand.

+

+NOTE Package: inform

+

+07:28.400 --> 00:07:33.640

+And then you've got the "info" versus "inform" formats.

+

+07:33.640 --> 00:07:34.567

+When you're in the manual,

+

+00:07:34.567 --> 00:07:37.140

+"inform" makes a huge difference.

+

+07:37.140 --> 00:07:39.367

+You can see here that you've got colorized items,

+

+00:07:39.367 --> 00:07:42.000

+and also in the middle you've got that

+

+07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000

+'read' part that's green and bold.

+

+07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.333

+In "info" it's not a specific object,

+

+00:07:49.333 --> 00:07:52.200

+it's just a string. In 'inform' it's actually

+

+00:07:52.200 --> 00:07:53.800

+a link that you can click,

+

+00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:58.320

+and actually go to that 'read' manual page.

+

+NOTE Package: which-key

+

+07:58.320 --> 00:08:01.300

+Now, we've got "which-key".

+

+08:01.300 --> 00:08:03.400

+"which-key" is a savior for beginners too.

+

+08:03.400 --> 00:08:04.867

+Just wait half a second or something,

+

+00:08:04.867 --> 00:08:06.500

+and Emacs will show you all the keys

+

+00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:08.433

+that you can access from the prefix combination

+

+00:08:08.433 --> 00:08:09.920

+that you just typed.

+

+08:09.920 --> 00:08:13.200

+So, it's really helpful for discovering functions

+

+00:08:13.200 --> 00:08:19.160

+and learning new functions, getting used to them.

+

+NOTE It all started with this message…

+

+08:19.160 --> 00:08:21.500

+And so that whole process started…,

+

+00:08:21.500 --> 00:08:26.533

+it was May 23, 2017,

+

+00:08:26.533 --> 00:08:30.440

+with that thread when I found the bug.

+

+08:30.440 --> 00:08:32.800

+I just bumped into an English/code bug

+

+00:08:32.800 --> 00:08:36.920

+this morning. In package.el, when one package

+

+08:36.920 --> 00:08:39.033

+is not needed anymore, the message is:

+

+00:08:39.033 --> 00:08:41.300

+"Package menu: Operation finished.

+

+00:08:41.300 --> 00:08:44.880

+1 packages are no longer needed", etc.

+

+08:44.880 --> 00:08:49.633

+So, I was asking whether we had best practices

+

+00:08:49.633 --> 00:08:53.800

+for using messages, and we had a whole thread

+

+08:53.800 --> 00:08:57.867

+about that. And while I was discussing on that

+

+00:08:57.867 --> 00:09:01.240

+thread, I started that new thread, which is:

+

+09:01.240 --> 00:09:02.867

+"package.el strings".

+

+00:09:02.867 --> 00:09:09.900

+The whole thing actually ended on June 27, 2018.

+

+00:09:09.900 --> 00:09:15.400

+So, a year after, with that message from Noam

+

+00:09:15.400 --> 00:09:18.567

+telling me that "Yes I can close the bug,"

+

+00:09:18.567 --> 00:09:22.040

+and that was it.

+

+09:22.040 --> 00:09:24.000

+So, it took about a year to finish that.

+

+00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:28.133

+What I did learn basically is that

+

+00:09:28.133 --> 00:09:32.160

+helping with Emacs is not that difficult.

+

+09:32.160 --> 00:09:36.100

+It takes time when you're not fluent with the code,

+

+00:09:36.100 --> 00:09:37.100

+but that's okay because the reference

+

+09:37.100 --> 00:09:39.300

+is excellent, and there are lots of people

+

+00:09:39.300 --> 00:09:41.520

+who are here to help.

+

+NOTE Conclusion

+

+09:41.520 --> 00:09:45.700

+Basically, the solution to all our problems is

+

+00:09:45.700 --> 00:09:47.733

+"Keep It Simple and Straightforward".

+

+00:09:47.733 --> 00:09:51.033

+As you can see in that patch,

+

+00:09:51.033 --> 00:09:53.233

+even if it's a beginner's patch,

+

+00:09:53.233 --> 00:09:57.733

+what I did shows what can be done by Emacs Lisp

+

+00:09:57.733 --> 00:09:59.533

+beginners to help with "straightening" the strings

+

+00:09:59.533 --> 00:10:02.267

+to reduce the number of potential English bugs.

+

+00:10:02.267 --> 00:10:04.533

+And then to make Emacs strings easier

+

+00:10:04.533 --> 00:10:07.233

+to be handled by real localization processes one day.

+

+00:10:07.233 --> 00:10:09.067

+But it doesn't have to be about strings

+

+00:10:09.067 --> 00:10:12.767

+because strings can be an easy entry point to Emacs,

+

+00:10:12.767 --> 00:10:16.720

+but it can be any itch that you want to scratch.

+

+10:16.720 --> 00:10:18.267

+And my real conclusion is that

+

+00:10:18.267 --> 00:10:22.160

+Emacs is free software, and what that means is mostly

+

+10:22.160 --> 00:10:24.067

+that it allows you to do things that you would

+

+00:10:24.067 --> 00:10:27.920

+never have thought of being able to do before.

+

+10:27.920 --> 00:10:32.000

+That's really the biggest lesson to be learned here.

+

+10:32.000 --> 00:10:33.400

+So, I want to thank all the people

+

+00:10:33.400 --> 00:10:37.920

+who allowed this to be happening, allowed me to

+

+10:37.920 --> 00:10:41.267

+learn a bit and contribute a bit to that wonderful

+

+00:10:41.267 --> 00:10:42.800

+piece of software that Emacs is.

+

+00:10:42.800 --> 00:10:44.533

+And thank you everyone for listening,

+

+00:10:44.533 --> 00:10:46.700

+and hopefully I'll see you next year

+

+00:10:46.700 --> 00:10:51.520

+with a different translation related presentation.

+

+10:51.520 --> 11:13.640

+Thank you very much.