Re: dired-move-to-filename-regexp and Chinese (was: dired-do-toggle)

[Per Starback]

I wrote:
> > Since emacs can't obey LANG anyway,

Eli wrote:
> Emacs _does_ obey LANG, just not everywhere.

What I meant is that Emacs is in everything else a program that speaks
English to the user.  The goes for command names, menus, tooltips,
buffer names, error mesages, etc. etc.  (A noteworthy exception is
the tutorial.)

If one were to pick one thing in Emacs to internationalize it sure
wouldn't be the date format in file listings!  The only reason it is
like that now is because that is done with an external program.  So I
guess it was thought that Emacs thus got this internationalization
"for free" that way.  Only it wasn't "for free", since updating
dired-move-to-filename-regexp has caused problems.

> > I think it's better to be consistent.  Having short random strings
> > in non-English in a program that otherwise speaks English is only
> > disturbing.

> Most users will disagree, judging by what I read here.  People want the 
> months spelled in their native language.

Is that in file listings in particular? There are month names in
calendar-mode too. Wouldn't it have been less trouble to translate
month names there to a bunch of languages than it is to maintain a
hairy error-prone regexp for dired?  It seems to me that there is no
real reason to prioritize this in particular.

My main point is what I wrote above about consistency, since I've
suspected that only people who use an English locale themselves think
that people with other locales always prefer to have any odd phrase
translated, regardless of the context.  But I may very possibly be
wrong.

My other point is that if effort should be spent on localization of
emacs (I don't know if there are plans for this) I think this date
format should be a low priority anyway, and that the highest priority
probably should be menus and tooltips.