On Thu, 25 May 2006, Jakub Friedl wrote:
This way I think we would lose the one GIMP manual. We instead would
have a dozen books that more and more will diverse or even die.
Be sure I know many of the multi-language annoyances in our files,
but anyway I think they are the only way to get ONE manual in
different languages. This stays true as long as we work on a day by
day basis on the (en) manual, not having a strong focus on en an
timing. To change that would mean we'd need a schedule with fixed(!)
deadlines. "Somebody" would write and finish (!) the en book and then
all the "ohters" would take that bible and translate it into their
respective language. - AFAIK is this not the style of work that fits
our needs and pleasures.
I do not agree. There is no need to keep all the manuals same (and it is not
the case now, anyway). What we need is to keep the same basic structure,
which is basically defined by help IDs. No need to have identical books.
Hmmm, I have strong feeling of disagreement with you:
The `one story per file, select your preferred language' is a good way to
preserve the style of the manual over all languages; although the sentences
can be rearanged in several ways, this limits the amount with which a
paragraph can drift from its original meaning. Why would we want differences
in explanation when we try to explain about the same programme???
I actually thought that there was already a consensus to split the files
and it wasnt done yet because of technical reasons.
I would even prefer it if there were a way to put different language versions
into the same PNG-files; `When compiling the book; select the appropriate
language, if its not available select the default instead': we are working on
the `source code': The HTML, pdf, etc ARE indeed split up according to
language.
Keeping all languages in same files is not the way to go. It will become
PITA once some languages start lagging behind - restructuring chapters, for
example, while there is noone available to do it for some of the languages,
would be a problem.
Some languages are already lagging behind (e.g. NL) and it might look like an
amputation when chapters are restructured, but problematic sections can easily
be excluded, or moved to a `old, but not obsolete' part of the file; If one
takes the effort of restructuring a chapter, I suppose he or she should also
take the effort to add some explanatory comments for other contributors?
But of course these are my feelings and discussion is a a good way to combine
visions and improve the ultimate result...
BTW: Mea Culpa about the Gimp thing, something to do with the LaTeX mores of:
{\sc Gimp} where the last three letters are small capitals ({\sc gimp}, would
be even more consistent), which differ from
regular capitals. According to this philosophy I even prefer
<acronym>gimp</acronym> above GIMP. Likewise, when Axel or Roman explained me
about it, I prefer the possibility of systematising quotes:
<quote>Text</quote> instead of `text', "text", 'text' or other
permutations.
Greetings
--
Hans de Jonge
+31 (0)24 844 96 85 +31 (0)62 20 57 101
`Perfect is the enemy of good'
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