Message-ID: <45D2CA26.8060000@postgresql.org>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 08:36:54 +0000
From: Dave Page <dpage@postgresql.org>
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To: Alexey Borzov <borz_off@cs.msu.su>
CC: Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>, pgsql-www@postgresql.org,
	Tino Wildenhain <tino@wildenhain.de>,
	Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net>,
	Guillaume Lelarge <guillaume@lelarge.info>,
	Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>, Adrian Maier <adrian.maier@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Multi-language to be or not to be
References: <45CF18A1.1090903@hagander.net> <45D0E362.1020903@hagander.net>
	<45D1549B.2080407@wildenhain.de>
	<200702131020.06670.josh@agliodbs.com> <45D2226B.6060502@cs.msu.su>
In-Reply-To: <45D2226B.6060502@cs.msu.su>
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Alexey Borzov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Josh Berkus wrote:
>> I have to say "I told you so".   When the existing translation scheme
>> was built two+ years ago, I pointed out that it was cumbersome,
>> confusing and inaccessable and predicted that none of our non-English
>> communities would use it.
> 
> The main problem as "I told you back then" is that a person willing to
> contribute to the website has to jump through a lot of hoops. As you
> probably noticed, potential translators who participated in this thread
> had no clue about the possibility of website translation. To know about
> that requires either searching the archives of pgsql-www or looking at
> pgweb module on gborg (which is itself "deprecated" for quite a bit of
> time).

Err, no it's not, though we don't tend to use the task manager any more.
Or do you mean GBorg itself?

> So to learn about translation infrastructure one essentially has to
> already know about translation infrastructure.

There are 'translation people' who know about the infrastructure who
still have chosen not to work on translating the website - I suspect
that part of the issue is simply the size of the task rather than
difficultly in doing the job - the po files are there for the dynamic
stuff, the admin site for the stuff that comes and goes on a regular
basis, and the vast majority of the static pages never change (which
means there is not necessarily any need for gettext type tools to
monitor the changes).

>> So, my vote is that whether or not we have *an* translation
>> infrastructure, the current incomplete and non-standard infrastructure
>> be junked.  It's never going to be used in its current form.
> 
> Well, even if you create a complete and standard infrastructure you'll
> still need to translate at least
> 1) Script messages and words from common templates. This can be done now
> through complete and standard gettext.
> 2) Content stored in database (news and such). There is an interface for
> this now, though it may require polishing (no one can say for sure,
> 'cause no one actually *used* that).
> 
> The only real problem IMO is "static" pages containing a lot of text and
> stored in CVS currently. It wasn't the brightest idea back then and they
> probably belong in the database, alongside all other stuff.

That would make management easier, but I don't think it will make a huge
difference to translatability of the site - whilst you could check a
page on the admin site periodically to check for changes since the last
translation update, it would probably be easier to just monitor the
pgweb-commit list and update translations reactively.


Regards, Dave.