[Doc-SIG] Translating sample programs in documentation

[Xuan Wu]

Hi Nick,

> While I'm hesitant to suggest this (since I'm not sure how much extra
> work it would be, or if it's even practical at all), would it be
> feasible to provide two different variants of the Chinese tutorial
> translation, one that keeps the original "online open source
> collaboration defaults to English for historical reasons" examples,
> and another that also translates the code comments, variable names,
> and string content in the examples?
Thanks for the suggestion. There might be some devil in the details, 
like how to name the repositories. According to PEP 545 IETF Language 
Tag is used for each language. If two versions are kept, there may need 
some extra tag for each. Another alternative would be an additional 
language switcher in the UI of documentation page for programs only, but 
surely that's extra work and may make UI cumbersome. Not to mention the 
question of which version is set as default in the switcher.

IMHO those who prefer to read original sample programs usually have 
fluency in English to read the original version of the tutorial. 
Nonetheless, as a workaround, they can still open another tab in the 
browser to have the English version on the side. So it seems to me can 
be deferred till there's a clear requirement for it.
>
> One of the strengths of Python as a programming language is that it
> not only enables sharing between programmers around the world, but
> also between Python programmers and experts in other domains. So even
> beyond the question of which is easier to learn, if someone is
> preparing something like a Jupyter notebook, and their primary
> audience is folks that don't speak English as their preferred
> language, then it may make sense to use as many native terms as
> possible, and only use English for the Python keywords. A fully
> translated tutorial (examples and all) helps make that capability
> clearer for everyone, not only beginners.

I can't agree more. In my view it'll be good advocate for using 
identifiers in native languages, which PEP 3131 initially designed for.

Thanks,
Xuan.