[development] updating translations: how valuable is user data after all?

[יובל האגר]

ביום שלישי 22 מאי 2007, 12:53, נכתב על ידי Gabor Hojtsy:
> Hi guys,
>
> Now Drupal 6.x-dev includes cool features to import PO files
> automatically at every logical step:
>
> [snip...]
>
> Note that an update will not *remove* anything from the DB because we
> don't know what we can remove as explained above. It can *overwrite*
> stuff though, and problems are around these overwrites.
>
> So how should the update paths work for Drupal and for modules/themes?
>

Forgive me if this is a dumb question that have been discussed before..

How come Drupal does not use the native gettext 'mo' format (binary po) for 
strings translation?
Why is the process of copying strings from the 'po' into the database is 
needed? Is it meaningful in terms of performance?

Taking this a bit further, if 'mo' files were used *instead* of the database, 
this problem could be easily solved by just letting the web interface put 
strings in the database which will have precedence over the 'mo' strings.

Again, sorry if this is way off.. I was just wondering about this issue ever 
since I met with Drupal..

--yuval