Re: [Monotone-devel] Is l10n a little off?

[Ethan Blanton]

Nathaniel Smith spake unto us the following wisdom:
> On Sun, Jan 15, 2006 at 02:16:40PM +0100, Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker wrote:
> > Heh, on the other hand, the same thing usually happens to the
> > translators as well, and I guess the worst is when you end up with a
> > bunch of fuzzy entries.  Other than that, I don't really see the harm,
> > but being new at this, it would probably be good to hear from those
> > that have done this for a little longer...
> 
> I _think_ the point is that they want to merge in new translations at
> a time that they choose, rather than having it just happen (possibly
> creating a bunch of spurious conflicts on their end)?

You  can  help  mitigate  these  problems  by having translatable string
freezes shortly before releases, and releasing  new  .potfiles  at  that
time.   There  are  a number of tools to reconcile the existing transla-
tions and newly translatable entries which the translators  can  use  to
minimize  the  pain.   This removes the necessity of following a rapidly
moving and sometimes inconsistent target (i.e., strings on a development
branch) and makes translators' jobs easier.

For  the  Gaim project, we try to freeze strings roughly one week before
minor-ish releases, and longer for releases with a lot of visible string
changes.   The  schedules are known to the regular translators (I forget
the details, but  I  think  strings  freeze  on  Saturday  for  Thursday
releases?),  and we try to keep the translators in the loop when bizarre
schedule mixups are going on.  We have created a gaim-i18n mailing  list
for  this  very  purpose.  This also provides a place for translators to
hash out issues with the strings to be translated (for example, we  have
had several plurality problems which had to be resolved by minor changes
in program code to make plurals work in all of our supported languages).

Of  course,  a discussion with your regular translators about their pre-
ferred practices is also helpful.  :-)

Hope that helps,
Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
                -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764

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