Re: gnome-applets wheater applet strings

[Kevin Vandersloot <kfv101 psu edu>]

Hi Chris. The problem is that the new applet used a completely new
server to download the data, in a completely new format (xml). This new
server provided data for improved functionality such as displaying icons
for future days (whereas the old one just displays the current weather).
Thus the "engine" had to be completely rewritten, as well as new
features were added (thus requiring new strings). 

Unfortunately the server (weather.interceptvector.com) had bandwidth
problems and is now completely down (it's now an unknown host - try
pinging it). The admin can't even be contacted anymore. Thus I had to
revert back to the 2.2.x applet behavior.

Considering the amount of change needed (the UI changed with the engine
changes - that is the point of changing the engine), I decided it would
be a lot easier to make the modifications I did.

So the answers to your questions are:

> - why should you revert them to their former state, just because you
> aren't satisfied by the stability of the new engine?
The new engine is not working at all right now and we have no idea of
if/when it will work since the admin can not be contacted.

> - Can't you separate them out from the 2.3.x changes?
As I said this would be very difficult

> - Why didn't you just try to stabilize the new gwheather
implementation?
The new implementation doesn't work. It's not a stability issue.

> - why have you COMPLETELY dropped the new gweather applet?
Again it doesn't work.

> - Is this really allowed, you broke the feature freeze, didn't you? Did
> you inform the release team?
Yes, there was an email to desktop-devel and release-team, which was
approved by Jeff Waugh.


Chris, I consider myself a fairly cooperative person. If anyone here
says otherwise then please speak up. Remember that I have no experience
with translations, that I do programming on a completely volunteer time
in my spare time (I'm pursuing a PhD in physics at the moment), thus I
don't have a great deal of time.


My hope is that I can get Dennis Cranston to reupdate his HIGifcation of
the applet (since he did a lot of the work originally) and in the
process bring the strings back to what they were a week ago (well the
strings that should be the same). 

Dennis, do you have time to do this?

Anyways, I apologize to the translators for not emailing the list. I
suggest you wait a few days so we can try to update the strings that
were reverted and didn't need to be.

Regards,
Kevin


On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 15:58, Christian Neumair wrote:
> Am Mon, 2003-07-14 um 15.11 schrieb Kevin Vandersloot:
> > Hi Chris.
> > 
> > On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 08:24, Christian Neumair wrote:
> > > Hi Kevin!
> > > I couldn't figure out your mail address, thanks to Hema Seetharamaiah
> > > who pointed it out. Please include it in your ChangeLog entries.
> > 
> > Yah, I'm trying to avoid putting my email adress due to bad spam
> > problems.
> > 
> > > But let's stick to the point:
> > > I noted that you reverted a couple (if not all) of the 2.3.x changes to
> > > the weather applet. By that, you added/changed hundret (~300) of strings
> > > marked for translation. Is the current state of the strings consistent
> > > or will the string changes from 2.3 get re-merged (like some other
> > > gweather stuff) so that our recent efforts aren't lost?
> > > Thanks in advance!
> > 
> > For 2.3.x gweather was previously using a new improved server to
> > download data which allowed for better forecast display. The server
> > however has proved to be unreliable, so I had to revert all the changes
> > yesterday such that the 2.3.x applet now is very similar to the 2.2.x
> > applet.
> > 
> > I guess we would want to merge the translations from the 2.2 branch, but
> > I don't know how to do that.
> > 
> > Otherwise, the strings should not change much anymore for 2.3.x now.
> I don't consider this a really good solution. You changed some mnemonics
> and dozens of weather descriptions in 2.3, obviously you had a reason
> for doing so. I have some questions regarding your decision (no, this is
> no interrogation ;):
> - why should you revert them to their former state, just because you
> aren't satisfied by the stability of the new engine?
> - Can't you separate them out from the 2.3.x changes?
> - Are they really tied that tight to the engine itself?
> - Why didn't you just try to stabilize the new gwheather implementation?
> - why have you COMPLETELY dropped the new gweather applet?
> - Is this really allowed, you broke the feature freeze, didn't you? Did
> you inform the release team?
> 
> I don't want to be harsh, but you didn't seem to be that cooperative.
> Changing hundrets of string without dropping the gnome-i18n list a few
> lines shouldn't be a common behavior.
> 
> regs,
>  Chris