Program translation useful for single-language sites. (was Re: [Zope3-dev] Picking the language at product instantiation)

[Jim Fulton]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> Here's a question about the suitability of the job board example for
> automatic translation.  Since much of the actual content (the job ads)
> is submitted by users of the site, it doesn't make much sense to
> translate the site boilerplate automatically based on the language of
> the visitor, since the job ads themselves aren't translated.  It would
> be funny if an English-language visitor of a Dutch job board saw
> English boilerplate around job ads in Dutch...
> 
> For this kind of product, it may make more sense to be able to pick
> the language when the main object is created -- in this case, when you
> choose "Add..." from the management menu to create a job board
> instance.  How hard would it be to add that feature?
> 
> If you don't add this feature, the job board doesn't make a great
> demo, because this defect becomes quite obvious as soon as you've got
> a job in the system and show switching languages.

I disagree, and here's why.

First, program translation and content translation are a lot more different
than many people realize. One way they are different is in application.

Program translation is useful for both single- and multiple-language sites.
Programs may be deployed in many single language sites with different languages.
I bet that most sites are single-language and would benefit a lot from program
translation even if there is no content translation. I suspect a job board
application will often be deployed for single-language sites.

Content translation is really beneficial for multi-lingual sites. I suspect,
however, that multi-lingual sites are much rarer than single-language sites.

Jim

-- 
Jim Fulton           mailto:jim@zope.com       Python Powered!
CTO                  (888) 344-4332            http://www.python.org
Zope Corporation     http://www.zope.com       http://www.zope.org