Are the translations used? (Re: [ENH] In Dutch)

Cees de Groot cg at cdegroot.com
Tue Apr 16 12:26:56 UTC 2002


Rudi Angela <olmeca at netscape.net> said:
> I'm extremely pleased to hear there is a Dutch translation!! Cees,
> thanks a lot!!! I am currently working on a pilot project that will
> introduce Squeak to Dutch schools.

Glad it might prove useful. BTW, I'm extremely interested to hear more about
this pilot, because I've been thinking quite some time about how to get Squeak
into Dutch schools.

> I haven't had a look at this Dutch translation, as I'm up to my ears
> in delivering the pilot app. But I was wondering if there is any way
> of making Squeak multi-lingual, more or less analogous to the way it is
> implemented in MacOSX. Note, I'm not only talking EToys! Does anyone on
> this list have ideas on how to tackle this problem?
>
The translation is incomplete and probably not completely consistent with
what's usable (I translated most words, but left e.g. "cursor" in English). 

Making Squeak multi-lingual has been discussed before. There are
two levels - making apps multi-lingual is relatively easy, look at
EToys. However, making Squeak multi-lingual would probably mean wrapping
every Smalltalk method selector with a localized representation. 

However, I don't think this is a precondition for educational use: EToys
and the other authoring tools need to be in Dutch, but the "lower levels"
can stay in English. The lower levels are for advanced usage, where users
(kids, adults) have already grasped quite a bit about programming so the
extra burden to switch to English is eased a bit. Learning English is a
bit of a precondition for using computers anyway, there are worse ways to
expose kids to English than teaching them the English names of Smalltalk
method selectors (probably we're making this more of a problem than
they'll ever have with it - at least in the Netherlands kids are exposed
to the language all day so they're not likely to be alienated by it).

On a more philosophical level, it's a matter of balancing the extra burden of
English-named method selectors against the advantages of the lingua franca
that the current standard naming scheme (English names) is for code exchange.
Localized names would seriously sit in the way of code sharing...

-- 
Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg at cdegroot.com>
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