Which place for docs in French, German, etc?

[Michel LAVAUD]

To: TWG-TDS@SHSU.edu
Subject: Re: Which place for docs in French, German, etc?

Alan JEFFREY wrote:
> If I'm looking for foobar documentation on my Mac then at the
> moment I open the folder:
> 
>    texmf:doc:latex
> 
> and look for something appropriate.  Under your scheme I have to first
> open the folder:
> 
>    texmf:doc:latex:fr
> 
> then:
> 
>    texmf:doc:latex:de
> 
> then:
> 
>    texmf:doc:latex:us
> 
> then ...
> 
> On Unix you can use * patterns to get round this, but not under MacOs
> (and possibly not PatioDoors95).

Ah, thanks; I see your point now. I think you misunderstood me.
Consider the practical case of an English-speaking user who knows
only English and French, but who does not know German, Dutch,
Chinese, Japanese etc. Under my scheme, he will have only two
folders, one pointing to doc/us (or doc/en) and another pointing
to doc/fr.

Now, he might name the icon/object/hieroglyph associated to this
folder "English doc" (or "English documentation for TeX-related
programs") and the other icon pointing to doc/fr "French doc".
To get doc, he will open first folder "English doc" and, if he
finds nothing ther, he will open "French doc".

Now consider a French-speaking user who speaks only French and
English. He will create exactly the same folders, the only
difference: he will name the icons "Doc en anglais" and "Doc en
francais". And he will open first the folder "Doc en francais",
then "Doc en anglais".

This scheme is completely insensitive to the increase of
informations irrelevant for a given user: only pertinent
information will be displayed, non-pertinent info is
automatically filtered out. If files in French of English have
been added on next revision of CD-ROM, the user will see it
automatically. But if German docs have been added, or other
information irrelevant for him, these will be filtered out. On
the contrary, a German-speaking user will see new doc files in
German, while new doc files in French will be filtered out if he
does not understand French.

With the scheme doc/package/language, all users see a hierarchy
with  /package/english/file, package/french/file
package/german/file etc. If any doc in any language is added, any
user will see all new files, even those that are completely
irrelevant for him, and display will become more and more
clobbered with information useless for him.

Michel Lavaud  (lavaud@univ-orleans.fr)