From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Changing the language of gnus menu entries Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 12:32:49 +0300 Message-ID: <83wqm4exmm.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87eh8eekza.fsf@web.de> <874n9amatr.fsf@web.de> <87vc1p9ggs.fsf@web.de> <837ge4hpco.fsf@gnu.org> <87li2k92l8.fsf@web.de> <8338oshfy5.fsf@gnu.org> <87k3i49d25.fsf@wanadoo.es> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1380188033 4539 80.91.229.3 (26 Sep 2013 09:33:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 09:33:53 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Sep 26 11:33:58 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1VP7xN-0002ZK-RP for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Sep 2013 11:33:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56987 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VP7xN-0007AF-FZ for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Sep 2013 05:33:57 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:51756) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VP7x8-00079A-48 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Sep 2013 05:33:47 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VP7x3-0007Xa-1X for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Sep 2013 05:33:42 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout20.012.net.il ([80.179.55.166]:38766) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VP7x2-0007XJ-Ou for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Sep 2013 05:33:36 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout20.012.net.il by a-mtaout20.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0MTQ007007NTFV00@a-mtaout20.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Sep 2013 12:33:01 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout20.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0MTQ007H17V0BK30@a-mtaout20.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 26 Sep 2013 12:33:01 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: <87k3i49d25.fsf@wanadoo.es> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.166 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:93602 Archived-At: > From: =D3scar Fuentes > Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 10:56:02 +0200 >=20 > Eli Zaretskii writes: >=20 > [snip] >=20 > >> At the end, I think, we would make some progress, and after most= of the > >> work is done after some months or years, development will stop, = and > >> nobody is there keeping things ticking over. > > > > If that's what will happen, >=20 > It already happened: http://www.nongnu.org/emacs-man-es/ That doesn't surprise me: translated user manuals is something that doesn't exist in most projects. What is usually translated is the UI= . > Localization would be good for certain target users of Emacs but, > sadly, I'm afraid that it is too much work extending for too much > time. There were 2 unsuccessful attempts to add support for bidirectional editing to Emacs, before the third one succeeded. Motivated individuals will not be averted by the fears and difficulties, and if they do a good job, it will stay, and be used and maintained. I don't know if you have ever translated a message catalog for some program, even a small one (such as gawk, wget, make, etc.) If you did, you know that even a small catalog requires an un-proportionally large effort to make a good translation. And yet the translations fo= r most Free Software packages get regularly updated for many languages, and succeed in tracking upstream development. I guess there are enough motivated translators out there to do the job, and continue doing it through the years. Up front, I see no reason that this wouldn't be the case for Emacs as well, although I have no data to prove it or even back it up. We will have to wait and see, but befor= e that experiment can begin, we need an infrastructure that will enable translators to begin their work, as they are usually not programmers. > And those target users would face other difficulties, such as the > technical-oriented nature of Emacs which requires a considerable > initial effort for being (more) efficient (than when using other > tools.) Having most of the UI in your first language is known to ease these difficulties quite a lot, at least for some users. There's no other reason for the message catalog translations to be so popular. Don't get me wrong: I use US English all the time, and always set up my machines to be in the US English locale, if I can. Maybe so do you. But you and I, and others like us, are not the target audience for whom these features are important. We should see this issue through their eyes, or at least try to.