Can a programmer explain this to me. How can there not already be a standard way to translate strings in the UI? What happens when they change the dialogs and menus around? How do you easily maintain the different language versions from release to release?
Surely there must be a uniform way to handle translation of UI in other Open Source applications -- a single file o' strings to be translated. Right?
Shouldn't be there be a simple way for non-programmers to help translate (not to mention proofread) UIs? Isn't there one already?
Just because administrating linux is difficult, doesn't mean using linux needs to be difficult. I think this confusion is caused by the poor job Microsoft has done at separating the concepts of "administrator" and "user." The result: I teach at a school where kids have just enough administrative power to make machines a pain in the ass for the computer guy to fix. Yet I (a teacher) don't have the administrative power to set up effective, customized solutions for students.
What I need in education: a flexible computer lab that lets me put machines in a kiosk mode for browsing-related assignments, in a console mode for programming, or in a word-processor/text-editor mode that saves directly to a student disk or folder for work, or to a teacher folder for exams.
Of course, I could imagine a number of custom systems built on top of this that would be useful for keeping track of student work and assessment data, but that's all for bonus points down the road.
The point is, schools seem to think that the goal is to give students a desktop that looks "familiar" and "easy" to use meaning a desktop that looks like the MS system they have at home. The only "familiar" concepts they need are the basics -- save to disk, open file, forward, back, what have you. As long as you keep the tasks directed and focused (which students need, believe me) and maintain the basics (mouse, buttons, text box, scroll bar), no one will be confused by a linux machine (except that they'll think it's windows, as my students inevitably do when they seem me working, unless I'm at a console, which they think is "like the matrix").
Though I'm sure Windows has proprietary tools that allow you to do these tasks, most schools don't implement them. On linux, you're starting afresh in a useful and real way, so that at the very least you have to first have someone in your tech department and administration think about what kind of computing environment makes sense. And what's more, if you wanted to implement some of the custom solutions I talked about, you could put an advanced computer class to work creating it for you... ah, wouldn't that be nice.
P.S. If anyone knows a school that works this way and needs an English teacher, I'm looking for a job for next year:)
Re:Two things you can't say
on
What You Can't Say
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You have to pretend that men and women are equal...
Patently untrue. People love talking about the differences between genders. The best selling Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus series of books, published at the height of so-called political correctness (1993, 1996, 1997 & 1999) are just one example. For more examples, visit cocktail parties, dinner tables, and talkshows around the nation: sexual difference is one of our culture's favorite topics for discussion. There is also a whole branch of feminism called "Difference feminism" precisely because it focuses on how men and women are different.
Perhaps a better question would be why attacks on sexism are so often labelled "feminist" or "political" (both modern synonyms for "heretical", in my book) or misrepresented as outrageous claims of absolute "equality" (which only serves to cloud the real issue of equal rights).
You have to avoid commenting on any difference between the races, even though it's obvious that some races tend to be better at some things than others (maybe it's ok to say that), and ergo unavoidably some races are worse at some things than others (and it's not okay to say that).
The 1992 flick titled White Men Can't Jump would suggest racial difference isn't as off-limits as you suggest.
However, I would agree that talking about race is something of a tabboo, but only among white people. This tabboo, however, is clearly not because people of color somehow police white people (the white people I know, myself included, police themselves when in all-white company). More likely, it has to do with the discomfort many whites feel mentioning race at all. Perhaps this is because for centuries whites talked openly from a standpoint of racial supremacy, and now that we've (hopefully) realized that this history is shameful, we're uncomfortable bringing up race at all.
No no no, poetry has nothing to do with freedom. Poetry predates free verse, and even free verse is not about freedom as much as it is about a newer, more flexible use of older forms (in this sense, free verse is not unlike python).
What makes poetry different from prose is precisely the degree to which structure matters. In poetry, we appreciate accidental bits of syntactic elegance as well as large scale architecture. Loving poetry is precisely about loving the nuance of structure -- loving the way a sonnet fulfills its form, whether by pioneering a totally new approach or simply by implementing an old approach particularly elegantly.
The idea that poetry should give you freedom just doesn't make any sense. Just because there have been radical poets who wrote about freedom does not mean that poetry has an innate capacity to free you any more than code has an innate capacity to help you buy stuff. We just happen to associate poetry with free thinkers at this historical moment (and computers with popup ads).
In either case, an aficionado appreciates the subtleties of form, regardless of whether a poem (or piece of code) is selling hotdogs or making an elaborate fart joke or even helping to "free" you (whatever that means).
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Can a programmer explain this to me. How can there not already be a standard way to translate strings in the UI? What happens when they change the dialogs and menus around? How do you easily maintain the different language versions from release to release?
Surely there must be a uniform way to handle translation of UI in other Open Source applications -- a single file o' strings to be translated. Right?
Shouldn't be there be a simple way for non-programmers to help translate (not to mention proofread) UIs? Isn't there one already?
Gnometab? Here's a link
Just because administrating linux is difficult, doesn't mean using linux needs to be difficult. I think this confusion is caused by the poor job Microsoft has done at separating the concepts of "administrator" and "user." The result: I teach at a school where kids have just enough administrative power to make machines a pain in the ass for the computer guy to fix. Yet I (a teacher) don't have the administrative power to set up effective, customized solutions for students.
What I need in education: a flexible computer lab that lets me put machines in a kiosk mode for browsing-related assignments, in a console mode for programming, or in a word-processor/text-editor mode that saves directly to a student disk or folder for work, or to a teacher folder for exams.
Of course, I could imagine a number of custom systems built on top of this that would be useful for keeping track of student work and assessment data, but that's all for bonus points down the road.
The point is, schools seem to think that the goal is to give students a desktop that looks "familiar" and "easy" to use meaning a desktop that looks like the MS system they have at home. The only "familiar" concepts they need are the basics -- save to disk, open file, forward, back, what have you. As long as you keep the tasks directed and focused (which students need, believe me) and maintain the basics (mouse, buttons, text box, scroll bar), no one will be confused by a linux machine (except that they'll think it's windows, as my students inevitably do when they seem me working, unless I'm at a console, which they think is "like the matrix").
Though I'm sure Windows has proprietary tools that allow you to do these tasks, most schools don't implement them. On linux, you're starting afresh in a useful and real way, so that at the very least you have to first have someone in your tech department and administration think about what kind of computing environment makes sense. And what's more, if you wanted to implement some of the custom solutions I talked about, you could put an advanced computer class to work creating it for you... ah, wouldn't that be nice.
P.S. If anyone knows a school that works this way and needs an English teacher, I'm looking for a job for next year :)
You have to pretend that men and women are equal...
Patently untrue. People love talking about the differences between genders. The best selling Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus series of books, published at the height of so-called political correctness (1993, 1996, 1997 & 1999) are just one example. For more examples, visit cocktail parties, dinner tables, and talkshows around the nation: sexual difference is one of our culture's favorite topics for discussion. There is also a whole branch of feminism called "Difference feminism" precisely because it focuses on how men and women are different.
Perhaps a better question would be why attacks on sexism are so often labelled "feminist" or "political" (both modern synonyms for "heretical", in my book) or misrepresented as outrageous claims of absolute "equality" (which only serves to cloud the real issue of equal rights).
You have to avoid commenting on any difference between the races, even though it's obvious that some races tend to be better at some things than others (maybe it's ok to say that), and ergo unavoidably some races are worse at some things than others (and it's not okay to say that).
The 1992 flick titled White Men Can't Jump would suggest racial difference isn't as off-limits as you suggest.
However, I would agree that talking about race is something of a tabboo, but only among white people. This tabboo, however, is clearly not because people of color somehow police white people (the white people I know, myself included, police themselves when in all-white company). More likely, it has to do with the discomfort many whites feel mentioning race at all. Perhaps this is because for centuries whites talked openly from a standpoint of racial supremacy, and now that we've (hopefully) realized that this history is shameful, we're uncomfortable bringing up race at all.
No no no, poetry has nothing to do with freedom. Poetry predates free verse, and even free verse is not about freedom as much as it is about a newer, more flexible use of older forms (in this sense, free verse is not unlike python).
What makes poetry different from prose is precisely the degree to which structure matters. In poetry, we appreciate accidental bits of syntactic elegance as well as large scale architecture. Loving poetry is precisely about loving the nuance of structure -- loving the way a sonnet fulfills its form, whether by pioneering a totally new approach or simply by implementing an old approach particularly elegantly.
The idea that poetry should give you freedom just doesn't make any sense. Just because there have been radical poets who wrote about freedom does not mean that poetry has an innate capacity to free you any more than code has an innate capacity to help you buy stuff. We just happen to associate poetry with free thinkers at this historical moment (and computers with popup ads).
In either case, an aficionado appreciates the subtleties of form, regardless of whether a poem (or piece of code) is selling hotdogs or making an elaborate fart joke or even helping to "free" you (whatever that means).
tmh