Re: ANON: Translations, Software, and Value of Resource Files

[Max Wyss <prodok -at- PRODOK -dot- CH>]

Dear Anonymous,

It looks to me that this project did not get into trouble because of
translation issues, but way more on very careless and not too professional
acting on the project management side. Confidence in a tool is good, but
when it gets to prime time use, serious testing would be a good idea...

Working with text resources is a sound practice anyway, even if there is no
intention for other language versions. Such an approach would allow to
reuse way more code, and therefore be more efficient and productive.

I know, it does not help you much when we all notice that you had to learn
your lesson the hard way.


Max Wyss
PRODOK Engineering
Technical documentation and translations, Electronic Publishing
CH-8906 Bonstetten, Switzerland

Fax:  +41 1 700 20 37
e-mail:  mailto:prodok -at- prodok -dot- ch
WWW:  http://www.prodok.ch/prodok


Bridging the Knowledge Gap


______________________



>All this talk about translations has made me decide to share a tale of woe.
>We have a major setback in our translation plans due to some faulty
>software, and I'd like to prevent anyone else from experiencing it.
>
>We are using Visual Basic to produce the client portion of our software.
>The software, online help, and user guides have to be translated into
>Canadian French in accordance with a contract we have with a large
>Canadian firm. One of our developers located some software that
>can go through the VB code, extract all screen labels (text) and
>put them in a file you can send to your translation agency.
>
>I'm sure there are many such label extraction/exchange programs. I got
>a bit suspicious when he started crowing about it costing only $150.
>My observation is that many development tools cost quite a bit
>more than that. He claimed he had tested it and it worked just
>fine.
>
>We extracted the labels from our client applications, sent
>the language files to a translation agency, and got them back
>on schedule. When our developers tried to use the label exchange
>to put the French labels in, the software wouldn't compile. On
>examination they determined  that WhippleWare (the extraction
>program) extracted elements it should not, such as function names,
>arguments, and so on. On further examination they determined
>that it missed about 20% of all labels it should have extracted.
>
>It will now take four developers three weeks each to fix the software so it
>can compile and have all the correct labels in French. This does not
>include rush service from our agency to translate the remaining 20% of
>the labels we didn't catch in the automated extraction.
>
>We have determined that for future releases we will put all labels in
>a resource file. We didn't do this originally because the lead developer
>was confident that WhippleWare could extract all the labels correctly
>and that the French labels could be exchanged into the software with
>just a compile.
>
>If you are in a project where the software needs to be translated, I
>recommend putting all the labels in a resource file rather than relying
>on a label extraction/exchange application.
>
>
>From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000==


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=