Re: [geolocation-api] Change text for description of GeolocationPositionError.message attribute (#50)

I think this is a chicken-and-egg problem: browser vendors have no incentive to change something that is spec-compliant, the spec has no incentive to support something browsers are not _currently_ doing. The presence of I18N bugs in the browser code bases is sad, but not a really compelling argument: each of the browsers has a localization framework and could localize the messages if they cared to. (Localizing them to match the document language is probably the more difficult problem).

I'm not overjoyed with the text of the note either. While it does describe the current state of affairs, it makes the claim that the message is "not localized" (that might not always be true: a browser vendor could localize it, even if they didn't support document language). As noted elsewhere, the `code` attribute can't convey the same level of debugging information as the `message`. I'd rather geolocation adopted a more forward looking set of advice, even though I accept that you're not going to add lang/dir attributes just now. Perhaps:

```
NOTE

The purpose of GeolocationPositionError's message attribute is to assist developers with debugging. 
For legacy reasons, this attribute does not supply language or base direction metadata and, in most
user agents, is only localized into English. Consumers are advised to leverage the code attribute to
create a localized experience. Implementers should provide for localization of the message attribute
using the caller's language. Future versions of this specification may add support for language and
direction metadata as required by [[STRING-META]] and [[BP-I18N-SPECDEV]].
```

I have not yet discussed this comment with the I18N WG, who may disagree with me.

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Received on Wednesday, 28 April 2021 17:09:45 UTC