Subject: Re: A briefing is needed...

From: "Dave Page" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 19:25:01 -0000

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexey Borzov [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: 14 January 2004 17:51
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [pgsql-www] A briefing is needed...
> 
> Greetings!
> 
> Well, thanks for finally letting me in, I promise not to spit 
> on the floor.

Good, I just cleaned it.

> The reason I'm in here was because I proposed some changes to website
> layout:
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2004-01/msg00161.php
> and then even made a mock-up of them:
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2004-01/msg00222.php
> but was informed by Robert Treat that PostgreSQL website is 
> in such a sorry state that it cannot be quickly redesigned.

That's not exactly the case. It can be easily redesigned, however we
have other priorities right now which are more difficult - eg.
Internationalisation.

> Thus I'm willing to contribute a bit of my time to website 
> development. 
> I'd like to know some things before I start:
> 
> 1) Is anyone actively working on website right now? I mean 
> not "is a member of website team", but actively working?

I'm actively maintaining but not developing at present.

> 2) Is there an adequate design available for postgresql.org? 
> Current thing looks extremely unprofessional, and I'm sure 
> that there are a lot of people who would be willing to 
> contribute their skills for postgresql.org...

First, I would suggest not pissing off the guy with root. Second, there
are lot's of people who offer to contribute 'professional' designs (I'm
not talking about those on this list btw) - there have yet to be any
that have come up with anything we all liked better.

> 3) Is the thing in portal dir in pgweb module the "new" 
> postgresql.org?

Yes.

> If yes, what needs to be done to it to make it "live"? Is 
> there some TODO list? Where is database schema?

The database schema is the one currently in use. I am about to extract a
copy for general consumption.

> 4) If the "portal" thing is not quite there yet, should I 
> dedicate some time to moving the common HTML to common 
> header/footer in the current www dir?

Perhaps. I shall post another message with the requirements for the new
site in a minute.

Regards, Dave.

---

From: Peter Eisentraut <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 20:41:25 +0100

> have other priorities right now which are more difficult - eg.

The internationalization system I see in CVS right now doesn't look very 
well thought out.  Separating the text from the context where it will 
appear will not make the site very maintainable.  Plus, it doesn't look 
like this system is going to have a lot of external tool support for 
editing, verifying, and updating translations.  The same mistakes have 
been made before, see catgets, Java properties, various similar 
key=>string attempts.  Check out WML and gettext for better approaches.  
Not only do they fulfill the criterion of not separating text from 
context, they also have tool support and are actually used in 
situations similar to ours.

---

From: Michael Glaesemann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 16:15:47 +0900

>> have other priorities right now which are more difficult - eg.
<snip/>
> The same mistakes have

Have you looked at xml:tm (translation memory) or XIFF at all? There's 
a recent article at xml.com about it 
(<http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/01/07/xmltm.html>). I don't know a lot 
about it, but am wondering if it wouldn't be another option. I don't 
know much about WML either, but am off to learn!

Michael Glaesemann
grzm myrealbox com

---

From: Euler Taveira de Oliveira <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 17:08:22 -0200

Hi,

> know much about WML either, but am off to learn!
It's an interesting solution but we don't have software to manage it! I'm working in a extension of gettext to SGML/XML languages. I think this is interesting because we have the *tool* -- gettext.

-- 
Euler Taveira de Oliveira
euler (at) ufgnet.ufg.br
Desenvolvedor Web e Administrador de Sistemas
UFGNet - Universidade Federal de Goiás