[Slight OT] TDPL in Russia

[Stanislav Blinov]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Stanislav Blinov wrote:
>> Here I agree that paper books beat any ebooks.
>> As for Russian translations - I don't like them since I've taken a 
>> look at translated GoF book on design patterns. Translations are 
>> unbearable far too often. Most of the time, people who translate such 
>> books are either totally incompetent in CompSci, or know little to 
>> know aspects of the particular area covered by the book. That leads to 
>> mistakes, inconsistensies, errors. And often, the translation itself 
>> is hardly readable compared to original. So I'd personally rather buy 
>> the book from original publisher (therefore giving my monetary thanks 
>> to the author) rather than pay additional sum for questionable work of 
>> translators and local publishers.
> 
> In the last couple of my trips to conferences in Europe, I talked to 
> developers who were not native english speakers about this. They were 
> unequivocal and emphatic in wanting to do their programming in english. 
> The thing is, the programming community is global, covering about every 
> country and language, and english is what binds them all together. 
> They're cut off if they are not conversant in technical english, and as 
> you said, are unhappy with second-rate buggy translations.
> 
> This wasn't true 25 years ago, when localizing the programming tools was 
> all the rage.

I can tell that this wasn't true even 15 years from here. Books, 
interviews, movies, games - all had solid and nice translations, 
pleasant to read an hear. But something has changed. And not for the best.

But during the time when 'localization' was not all that bad funny 
things did happen too. Here in Russia there's an accountant software 
package developed by 1C for some 10-15 years now. It has builtin 
language that has natural 'English' form, but is available also 
completely localized. All constructs, functions, keywords, everything is 
translated into Russian. I can say that average-skilled programmer or 
coder could easily catch up that language if he saw it in normal 
English. But catching up this 'localized' flavor is a big PITA.

> 
> I use google translator a lot. Sure, it often gives very bad 
> translations, but they are good enough that you can get what the author 
> is saying.

True, and this is great mean to both stay focused and not get frustrated 
when you realize that what you've read in 'official' translation was a 
terrible mistake.