Gettext: Is it a good idea for the message ID to be the english text?

Wow, I'm surprised that no one is advocating using the English as a key. I used this style in a couple of software projects, and IMHO it worked out pretty well. The code readability is great, and if you change an English string it becomes obvious that the message needs to be considered for re-translation (which is a good thing).

In the case that you're only correcting spelling or making some other change that definitely doesn't require translation, it's a simple matter to update the IDs for that string in the resource files.

That said, I'm currently evaluating whether or not to carry this way of doing I18N forward to a new project, so it's good to hear some thoughts on why it might not be a good idea.

I strongly disagree with Richard Harrisons answer about which he states it is "the only way". Dear asker, do not trust an answer that states it is the only way, because the "only way" doesn't exist.

Here is another way which IMHO has a few advantages over Richards approach:

• Start with using the proto-version of the English string as Original.
• Don't display these proto-strings but create a translation file for English nontheless
• Copy the proto-strings to the translation for the beginning

Advantages:

• readable code
• text in your code is very close if not identical to what your view displays
• if you want to change the English text, you don't change the proto-string but the translation
• if you want to translate the same thing twice, just write a slightly different proto-string or just add 'version for this and that' and you still have a perfectly readable code

I use meaningful IDs such as "welcome_back_1" which would be "welcome back, %1" etc. I always have English as my "base" language so in the worst case scenario when a specific language doesn't have a message ID, I fall-back on English.

I don't like to use actual English phrases as message ID's because if the English changes so does the ID. This might not affect you much if you use some automated tools, but it bothers me. I don't like to use simple codes (like msg3975) because they don't mean anything, so reading the code is more difficult unless you litter comments everywhere.