[IPython-dev] Internationalisation and creating domain specific Help items

[Doug Blank]

On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 12:45 PM, Matthias Bussonnier <
bussonniermatthias at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Le 28 mai 2014 à 16:44, Ozan Çağlayan a écrit :
>>
>>
>>
> 3) I think that there are four components of an IPython system that may
> need three methods: HTML, JavaScript, the server, and the kernel. Remember
> that the decimal place separation, and dates can change syntactical format,
> in addition to just changing text. Also, there are other kernels beyond
> CPython, which might change even more in a different language context.
>
>
>
> Decimal place and separation should **never** be internationalized.
> (except maybe in non selectable, carefully chosen UI element)
> I reserve a special place in hell for people that make things like that
> happen through OS or Software upgrade.
>
> In a more calm way, I do think that internationalization of a kernel is a
> bad idea. You shouldn't  have half internationalized
> things. And because of the huge amount  library you will not be able to
> fully translate kernels.
>

The kinds of things that I would be interested in translating in the kernel
would be items like help and doc-strings. When working with students
learning to program (especially kids), error messages may also need to be
translated (although that has different implications). But I can also
imagine a visual programming language that has text on the blocks. I would
think those would be translated too.

But those are issues for the kernel to determine.


> Beside, especially in software, you can easily translate things in the
> wrong way which hurt googlability and leads to things like
>
> "Ouvrir le Panda Roux" (which read as rip open the red panda) instead of
> Launch FireFox [1]
>

Writing text that can be translated, and developing the associated
translations is a process very similar to coding... definitely something
that can be debugged and get better over time.


> I do not know about your experience in having non-english software
> installed, but it is the bane of the existence
> of most researcher in my lab. Special though to my ex-officemate that had
> German Laptop/os, with a French-translated
> Software, manual in english and had to type greek-like things sometime.
>
> I know of at least 1 os manufacturer that did it almost right, on my
> computer I can actually do
> `cd Desktop`, and it put me on the folder "Bureau", or search "keychain"
> and it finds the "Trousseau d'access".
> So it Does display one thing but search also in the english-invisible
> string which partially help.
>

Funny! Probably don't want to do it almost right :)

-Doug


>
> --
> M
>
> [1] No firefox is not Renard de feu :
> http://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.html
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> IPython-dev mailing list
> IPython-dev at scipy.org
> http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/ipython-dev
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/ipython-dev/attachments/20140528/ef4b8cab/attachment.html>