[Fwd: Re: [Freecats-Dev] A look at JCAT?]

[Simos Xenitellis <simos74 gmx net>]

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From: Henri Chorand <henri@xtradoc.com>
To: Free CATS Dev list <freecats-dev@nongnu.org>
Subject: Re: [Freecats-Dev] A look at JCAT?
Date: 02 Feb 2003 21:41:05 +0100

Simos Xenitellis wrote:
> Sorry if I divert the energy to checking products.

Well, we're not here to reinvent the wheel, are we ;-)

> The JCAT(tm) tool
> http://www.translate.com/shared/jcat_info.html
> http://www.translate.com/shared/jcat_faq.html
> 
> has a list of features that at least in this list there is
 > a wish to implement.
> It's server based and the server component happens to run
 > on Linux.

One of the most interesting things presently happening in CAT.
Here are my first remarks:

- non-free software :-(

- Java (not to say one can't write a proper CAT software in Java, but 
see my previous answer on IBM's RBmanager).

- I first could not find any links apart from those between these two 
pages, which I found rather disturbing.
Thanks to Google:
http://www.translate.com/locales/en-US/index.html?init_page=locales/en-US/home.html

- seems very clever on some issues.

- stores project files centrally, on the server (which we oppose, due to 
our good knowledge of "real world" projects).
The thing is, this in effect forbids translators from doing whatever 
(more or less clean) "hack" on source files. In order to avoid this 
choice being a strong drawback, one day or another, the CAT software 
must be comprehensive and entirely flawless. More than that, this 
approach forbids doing anything once a non-standard/ flawed format/ 
whatever similar issue comes. Too much localization agency-centric.

- another closely related issue is that JCAT only understands 
well-formed HTML and XML. Due to this, it won't be able to work on at 
least 80% of existing HTML files. This is why we prefer a "dumb" approach.

- Also processes non-XML / HTML files (also proprietary).

- Crude (browser-based) interface compared to what we wish to make. 
Another choice which eases developers' life.

- The screen capture shows an example in which there is NO text layout 
(internal tags, for instance a couple of words in bold). I would be 
curious to know if and how well JCAT handles this.


> Article on using XML and translations (same site):
> http://www.translate.com/shared/savourel.html

- Yves Savourel is one of the most reputed experts on localization and 
XML. I would not be surprised if he had influenced JCAT's design, which 
features seem in line with his free software projects (on Source Forge).

See also the free software to which he heavily contributed:
http://www.polyglot.com/shared/tools/

- I've thought about contacting him once we would have first done some 
work on our side.
Thierry Sourbier happens to know him. I hope he can establish a contact 
with Free CATS team.


Thierry, what would you think about establishing a contact for us with Yves?


Regards,

Henri



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Simos Xenitellis <simos74@gmx.net>