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Re: [Freecats-Dev] First review of Free CATS specification docs by Yves
From: |
Marc Prior |
Subject: |
Re: [Freecats-Dev] First review of Free CATS specification docs by Yves Savourel |
Date: |
Mon, 23 Jun 2003 09:32:07 +0200 |
Here are some disjointed comments on the comments by Yves.
> One think I would suggest for the TM is to take in account a possible
> third type of match.
Trados may possibly have done something similar. I heard recently that Trados
its method of calculating the similarity of a document, now recognizing 100%
matches as such only if they are in a longer passage of identical text.
I am sceptical, incidentally, that a computer will be able to tell the
difference reliably between exact and perfect matches. I have experienced
whole chapters which were identical but for which the context was different.
One particular example was the safety instructions for construction
machinery. The instructions referred to the "Gerät" (equipment), which is
quite common in German, but in English it is usual to refer to the item by
name, e.g. "excavator". When the same instructions were used for a cement
mixer, of course, the translation was not correct, even though the entire
chapter was supposedly identical.
> An updater
> module would be a huge step forward: a way to compare source doc version
> 1, source doc version 2, translated doc version 1, and create the
> translated version 2 with the delta left to edit or translate (and then,
> at that point the translator+TM takes over).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what propagation is? My comments
above about identical matches still apply, though.
> You seem to look into XML-databases
> with XML-based indexing engine. It's certainly a possibility, but don't
> discard more simple classic database as well.
Another reason for a modular solution.
> Related to fuzzy matching: I've also attached an old article
> (Waikoloa.zip) that explains one way to create a simple TM engine.
Waikoloa is a good example of something else: portability, or rather lack of
it. Waikoloa is, I think you'll find, written in C++, but there is no Linux
version of it, and the project owners, when I contacted them, weren't
interested in porting it.
> This actually made me think about a possible problem of open source
> projects. Many are a little bias toward Linux, Java, etc. in reaction
> against Microsoft often. But the mainstream of possible users are on
> Windows, and expect Windows-like applications.
This comment actually addresses a very serious issue here, namely: what is
the intended user group of Free CATs? Is an open-source project necessarily
aimed at open-source users?
OmegaT faces a similar question. It is an open-source project, but most users
use Windows or the Mac. They are not really interested in the fact that it is
open-source. The Mac users use it (or try it) because there is very little
else available (apart from Wordfast, of course). The Windows users tend to be
those who want to try translation memory software without at some stage
having to pay what they think is a lot of money for it.
Neither of these groups are likely to support the open-source concept in the
long term. Conversely, most translators I have come across who support
open-source (by which I mean those who use Linux) actually use Deja Vu.
Marc