[Zope3-dev] Re: translate() default value

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Dmitry Vasiliev wrote:
> Philipp von Weitershausen wrote:
> 
>> Dmitry Vasiliev wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Everyone,
>>>
>>> In the most cases users of the translate() expect untranslated string 
>>> will be returned if no translation is performed. See for example 
>>> Issue #298 (http://www.zope.org/Collectors/Zope3-dev/298).
>>> Is this reasonable to change the translate() to return untranslated 
>>> string by default instead of None?
>>
>>
>>
>> I think so. I also don't agree with myself anymore regarding the 
>> fixing of issue 298; your proposal sounds a lot better.
>>
>> So, +1 to the change. The question remains what to do on X3.0 branch. 
>> Changing the semantics of zope.i18n.translate could already jeopardize 
>> backward compatability between X3.0 and 3.1; such a change between 
>> X3.0.0 and X3.0.1 could be even be worse...
>>
>> Thoughts?
> 
> 
> The simplest solution is to change all translate(text) calls to 
> translate(text, default=text).

Ah, when I wrote my original mail I thought of this solution but 
scrapped it because I didn't think it would work (e.g. think of explicit 
message ids). By looking at the code of zope.i18n.translate now and a 
quick test on the interpreter prompt, I think that it'll be appropriate.

> I think we need to do it for 3.1 also.

Well, I dunno... I think changing the behaviour of zope.i18n.translate 
regarding the default argument should be enough. Explicit defaults where 
they're not needed are dead chickens. We need the dead chickens for X3.0 
but why introduce them for 3.1 as well?

Philipp