Re: Software Assurance raises prize 180 %

From: Leo Saguisag (Borland) ("Leo)
Date: 10/25/04 

Date: 24 Oct 2004 17:17:14 -0700

Andrew Rybenkov wrote:

> English for programmers - like Latin for medics.
> Either you know it (even basic level - to read documentation), or you
> just took wrong chair.

While I suspect that the vast majority of programmers have basic
English proficiency I do not think this should be a requirement to be a
good programmer.

Anyway, I specifically stated that it may be *easier* to understand a
message in your own language as opposed to English. It is primarily a
question of productivity. For example I personally have been exposed
to enough localized error messages in my line of work that I can
reasonably use the localized versions of Delphi but I am still much
faster and much more productive using the English build because I can
understand the error messages, wizards and dialogs when they are in
English.

> Localized versions bring their own errors.
> (And that could be very serious errors - like bug in "Russian" Word
> 2000 that made impossible to use Picture Property dialog - obviously
> original MS developers would not missed it.)

I fail to see how a lack of proper QA of the localized products
qualifies as an argument against the practice of localization.

> Also localized versions bring inconsistence - different peoples could
> translate the same term to different "local" words. This happens all
> around in publishing programs (for example).

Hence, translators / localization agencies normally refer to a common
glossary of technical terms and their "proper" translations. For
example, Microsoft publishes their localization glossaries here:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/msdn/newup/Glossary/ 

-- 
Leo Saguisag
Delphi l10n engineer
About the Borland newsgroups: http://info.borland.com/newsgroups/
"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend
greatly on our own point of view." -- Obi-Wan Kenobi (Return Of The
Jedi)

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