[Qemu-devel] Re: [PATCH 6/9] QError: Add qdev not found error

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 10/18/2009 06:25 AM, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> The manual for GNU gettext explains quite well why gettext takes a
> message string as argument, instead of a "message code".  Imho, a
> similar case can be made for error messages at call sites.

That's true.  However here we have the case of having errors consumed by 
programs as well as users, so we want something that can be easily made 
into language bindings.

In other words, this situation is much more similar to errno/strerror, 
than to a compiler error message (which will often be used by other 
programs, but where the actual error text will be read by a person; this 
can and should use gettext).

Paolo