On Dec 17, 2007 6:44 PM, <raymond(a)svn.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Revision: 28612
> Author: raymond
> Date: 2007-12-17 23:44:29 +0000 (Mon, 17 Dec 2007)
>
> Log Message:
> -----------
> * Rename new message 'filetype-separator' (r28530) to the more generic message name 'comma-separator'.
> Can be useful for other still hardcoded comma separations.
I was thinking more flexibility was better than less. German has
about the same punctuation as English, but some languages have pretty
weird punctuation conventions, AFAIK. I'm not sure what would make
you choose a semicolon instead of a comma right now or vice versa, as
far as English goes, but if there is any good reason I'm not sure the
same logic would always apply in other languages. So if for some
reason one particular list has some odd property (say, in English,
possibly including items with commas in them), that language might
want to use a different punctuation mark (like a semicolon instead of
a comma, in the English example).
Whereas if we have a bunch of different separator messages for
different types of lists, that all contain pretty much the same
content, what's the problem? Most localizers can ignore them, and
those who can't can easily copy-paste and change several separators
rather than just one. This is a similar philosophy to how we have at
least six different messages containing the text "Go".