[Sussex] A little translation please

[Steven Dobson]

David

On Fri, 2006-06-23 at 10:43 +0000, d binderman wrote:
> >I want human translaters - people I can trust, I just don't trust the
> >robot ones; their results can be just a little too comic at times.
> 
> Doing a perfect job immediately is all very laudable, but more work.
> No one ever did a perfect product in v1.0, that usually comes in v4.9 or 
> v5.7

I don't expect the software to be perfect.  However, I do know that
going back and retro fiting i18n code is more boring than doing the
translations.  So from the get go I have made sure that all messages
pass throught some i18n code.

The exception was the login code - it's boiler plate so I just copied it
(far use from Sun's J2EE tutorial or JBoss's documentation).   I just
had to go back an make a small adjust ment so I took the time to retro
fit the i18n calls into the JSP files.  I needed to test that the i18n
did work so I produced French and German versions for testing.

> As a first cut I suggest using the machine translation facilities on the 
> web.

I think that makes software look less professional.  How poorly would
you think of that Japanise VCR if the instruction booklet told you to:
   
   Insert into the slot the tape to play you want.

Having read a few badly translated manuals in my time I know that I tend
to think less of the company that hasn't done a good job in that area.

> Native readers of your messages will notice errors and hopefully submit
> suggestions for improvements.
> 
> That will get you the rest of the way.

When the code is relased I will ship with a notice asking for
translators and accessablity users to help make it better.  I have done
what I can to support both parties now, but I will need help to take it
the rest of the way.

Steve

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