Re: Wasted resources

[Clytie Siddall <clytie riverland net au>]

Thanks for your reply, Adam. :)

On 18/05/2005, at 11:59 AM, Adam Weinberger wrote:

> Sharing resources and working together does not equate to  
> "everybody on my team should use this tool that I like."

I'm sorry, I must not have explained myself clearly. I don't mean  
that at all. I mean the whole translation area working together,  
combining resources, so it's possible for each of us to use the  
methods that suit us best. It's really the currency and submission  
procedures which vary so much, not our translation methods, since  
there is always a choice of how to perform the actual translation task.
> There are some of us who prefer CVS and abhor the thought of using  
> a GUI or web-based translation tool. I personally do all my work  
> from a terminal, and a web-based or GUI tool would not fit any of  
> my needs.

I agree wholeheartedly. I use a variety of methods myself, mostly  
offline .po editing in a specialist editor (LocFactoryEditor for Mac  
OSX). I would certainly not support any narrowing of our method-options.
> But the point is that my reasons for wanting to use a terminal are  
> exactly the same as your reasons for preferring pootle, and others'  
> reasons for preferring rosetta or gtranslator or etc.: it's the  
> environment which best suits your needs.

I prefer Pootle over Rosetta, that was what I was saying, based on my  
experience. I certainly don't want to tell other people what to do,  
or to say any one method is better than all the others. I don't think  
I said that.
> You're barking up the wrong tree here. Don't focus your energy on  
> finding one way of doing things that you feel everybody should  
> follow. If you are a huge fan of pootle, join the pootle project.  
> Contribute code, thoughts, ideas, and advocacy.

Of course. :)
> But please, recognize how easily people get into application-based  
> Holy Wars. Though your intentions are good, implying that people  
> should use a method that obviates their own may well lead to more  
> problems than it solves.

The last thing I want is that sort of reaction, and it's certainly  
not what I'm saying. What I was trying to say (and evidently did not  
say clearly) is that there are so many different projects, using so  
many different ways of managing translation, which each new  
translator has to learn before they can simply get on with the task,  
using whatever tools suit them. Something like The Translation  
Project, where files from any project can be listed, translated and  
submitted, makes more sense to me than all these separate translation  
efforts.

By contrast, a variety of options for the translation task makes the  
best sort of sense. That way, the translator has more choices about  
how to perform the task. It's the limiting of those choices, by the  
arbitrary translation-managing decisions of each different project,  
that I consider wastes resources.

I do hope I've made myself clear this time. Sometimes I can be a bit  
cryptic, since typing is so difficult for me, it's a bit tempting to  
say as much as you can in the fewest possible words. ;)  No excuse  
for not being clear, though.

from Clytie (vi-VN, team/nhÃm Gnome-vi)

Clytie Siddall--Renmark, in the Riverland of South Australia

á thÃnh phá Renmark, tái mián sÃng cáa Nam Ãc