On 08/11/2018 15:32, Rémy Maucherat wrote:
On Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 3:47 PM Mark Thomas <ma...@apache.org> wrote:
On 08/11/2018 00:16, Emmanuel Bourg wrote:
Le 07/11/2018 à 23:36, Mark Thomas a écrit :
WDYT?
What about simplifying the issue by dropping the translations of the
internal messages and retaining only the user facing messages (things
like HTTP error messages that can appear in a normal request) ?
That was completely unexpected. Some serious food for thought here.
Same :D
I think it's worth considering because:
- The target audience of Tomcat is mainly developers and administrators
which are used to read English text.
My primary concern is that it could make Tomcat less accessible to
non-native Eglish speakers. Granted all of our documentation, nearly
every message on the mailing list, issue tracker, code comments etc are
all in English but is that a reason to drop attempts to provide i10n or
is it an indication we aren't doing nearly enough?
The irony of asking that question on a mailing list where messages are
in English hasn't escaped me.
Yes, the question is: is it ever going to be possible to use Tomcat for
someone who doesn't understand english at all (since the req level is
pretty low).
However, whatever happens, using a string bundle should remain mandatory.
- The coverage of the translations is rather low.
They tend to get done once at a point in time where they are close to
100% and then tail of as the code is refactored and new features added.
- Maintaining the translations, the quality and the consistency is
difficult and time consuming.
There has been very little of this. I recall a big donation of Spanish
translations, the recent Russian additions and then, apart from those,
the odd typo fix here and there. My hope was that, with a tool like
POEditor, it would be easier for contributors to improve and/or add to
the translations.
- Sometimes the translation of the technical terms are a bit unusual and
not as clear as the English counterpart. For example in French it isn't
obvious that "gestionnaire de protocole" relates to ProtocolHandler
which is an internal Tomcat concept. Other translations are even funny
like "enrobeur de conteneur" for "wrapper container" (a pastry concept
applied to a freight container?). This issue is so common with the
French translation that many messages carry the English terms in
parentheses to clarify the meaning.
If my French was a lot better, I might just start reading the
translations to enjoy the humour. Seriously, we (well, those in the
community that speak French fluently - not me) could look to improve
those. I think it might be better to not translate class/interface names
like "ProtocolHandler", "Realm" or maybe put the translations in
brackets. As for the shipping container wrapped in pastry, I assume a
better translation is possible.
It might sound funny, but the pastry thing is correct.
But that brings us back to your original question of whether the
translations are worth it. If (and it is a fairly big if) the
translations were mostly complete and mostly of good quality, would that
change your view? I'm thinking try and improve the translations as a
first step and, if things don't improve, then decide what to do next.
Ok for trying !
Just a reminder. My current plan for importing translated strings means
that all the LocalStrings_xx.properties files (i.e. the translated files
but not the English versions) will get re-written meaning:
- all comments will be lost
- all entries will be in alphabetical order
- groups (defined by the key value up to the first period) will be
separated by a blank line
Mark
Removing the translations (apart from the UI) feels to be too big a step
to me. That said, I can see how they would be a hindrance rather than a
help to some. Perhaps separating the l10n JARs into user facing and
external would give more options. Admins could remove the translated JAR
for the internal messages and get those messages in English if they
prefer. Or we could ship less or even no translations for internal
messages by default and provide them as a separate download.
"apart from the UI", like the manager webapp ? It might sounds obvious, but
if Tomcat is not usable by someone who doesn't understand english, then it
will not add any value but only add confusing translations depending on the
language configured in the user browser.
Rémy
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