ANON: Translations, Software, and Value of Resource Files

[Anonymous <anonfwd -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>]

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reply on list.

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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.


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