Re: [Lynx-dev] Proposed patch to init preferred-doc-lang from LANG/LANGUAGE

[Chuck Houpt]

At 6:55 PM +0000 4/26/07, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> Chuck Houpt dixit:
>
> >  However, since LC_MESSAGES is designed to control the
> >  language used for "informative messages", and web pages are a kind of
> >  informational message,
>
> They aren't. They are *data*, not part of the programme. Otherwise,
> content you write in a word processor would be an informative message
> of it? Even GPL'd if the word processor itself is?

I think you've gotten to the heart of the issue. Are web pages/sites 
just data? Certainly, if Lynx was just a static HTML file viewer 
program, like the text viewers more/less, then I would agree 100% 
with you.

However, I think web sites have more in common with interpreted 
programs than static data. A web site executes via a combination of a 
local HTML/HTTP interpreter (lynx), and server side code. Lynx is 
more like an interpreter (perl, java, etc), than a static data viewer 
or editor (more, less, emacs, vi).

How do interpreters handle locales? In general, they convert the 
system's locale into a form that can be accessed from the interpreted 
programming language. Some languages have locale APIs that are very 
similar to Unix (Perl). Others, like Java, have cross-platform APIs 
that require greater conversion.

HTTP's Accept-Language "API" is very foreign, but a basic locale 
setting can be converted. Of course, the settings should be fully 
customizable.

Some illustrative examples:

Given that myprog.pl is an multilingual Perl script, then the 
following will display myprog messages in Japanese:

export LANG=ja
perl myprog.pl

Give that Google.com is a multilingual web site, then the following 
should display with Google's Japanese messages (modulo custom 
settings):

export LANG=ja
lynx http://google.com

Like myprog.pl, http://google.com is a kind of program - a web app. 
Like any multilingual program, I would expect it to honor system 
language settings.

- Chuck