Feedback on the design and implementation of Localize is welcome

[kipcole9]

Localise is under active development but the repo is private for now. However the README documents the goals and objectives.

Comments, feedback, suggestions are all warmly welcome.

This is the third iteration of ex_cldr (now Localize) so its a rare oppportunity to fix architectural issues, leverage more up-to-date Elixir idioms and address any feedback you might have.

[jswanner]

@kipcole9 this is all very exciting! I'm looking forward to trying it out, and would like to help out wherever possible. After reading the README (a couple/few times), I have a couple small questions...

How big is the data for a locale? Or, more specifically, any idea how big the term stored in :persistent_term will be for each locale? I've always assumed it was a lot of data per locale, but never checked. I don't know enough of the details of :persistent_term to know if it is something to be concerned about, and if the default 1 GB of virtual address space for the allocator is something to be cognizant of.

How will the locale data be delivered as external term format, will there be a data repository for that?

[kipcole9]

@jswanner, good questions!

1. Locales are serialised to a zipped Erlang term format file and that's what will be downloaded. Each locale is between 300-500k in download size.
2. The :persistent_term size of a locale is about 1.6MB. There are 766 locales so a lot of them can be loaded without stressing the default size of :persistent_term. As in ex_cldr, :en and :und will always be loaded. All other locales will be downloaded on demand.
3. There will be runtime configuration options to limit the number of locales to a given level of coverage (like "modern", "moderate", ...) and to limit to a specific set of supported locales. The defaults will be all locale coverage levels and all locales.
4. Locale storage and access will be, by default, :persistent_term. However I am making storage and access a configurable module that follows a Behaviour. So if you want to store it in :ets, or implement it as some kind of :rpc then go for it.
5. Locales will be downloaded by default (at least during the devlepment cycle) like they are today: from GitHub. A configuration option will allow locales to be downloaded from configurable sources as either a URL template into which a locale and version number will be interpolated. Or from calling an {M, f, a} that takes those same parameters. This allows organisations to host their own copy of locales - or to even hack the locale content (not recommended!). I am aiming to have the release process build locales and upload them to Cloudflare under a domain elixir-localize.com - I know it's possible but I'm not at all good at hacking GitHub workflows. Assistance would be greatly appreciated!

I will update the readme to reflect this later today. Thanks very much for the engagement. This new version is a chance for anyone and everyone to provide any feedback on current issue, limitations, frustrations and wishes. Keep them coming.