We're back and we're embarrassing ourselves? (aka Making your localizer's life easier, Part 2)

Sorting It All Out — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:21:44 GMT

I know regular readers have been waiting impatiently with the next post to the series after How many

re: How many ways can a developer say 'File Not Found?' (aka Making your localizer's life easier, Part 1)

Mihai — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 02:08:32 GMT

It is a good idea to make a difference between "reuse" (or duplication) and "consistency."

Duplication is good, consistency is good, reuse is bad.

Duplication: to have the same string in several places.

Consistency: to have all instances be the same.

Reuse: to merge all identical strings into one and use that one (usually "to save money").

It is good to have the same string repeated. You need to say "Print" 50 times? Then have it 50 times! This gives the freedom to the translator to do what it's right for his language. Costs more? Maybe. But it will cost even more if you merge them (work), then you have a bug filed saying that titles and buttons need different translations.

The challenge is to keep strings separate and consistent in the same time.

Usually translated versions end up being more consistent, because are done by linguists, with access to the full set of strings, with proper tools, then edited with consistency as one of the point to check.

The English version is just bunch of strings put together by various programmers, some of them with English as a second language, usually without a spell-check, and over a long period of time.