Re: Updating po files on make dist

[Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>]

fre 2003-05-23 klockan 17.20 skrev Kjartan Maraas:
> > > But one has been described here several times. There are *always*
> > > backups of the original files when conflicts occur. Just copy the backup
> > > to the original and carry on as you were. I do not see the problem here
> > > and it certainly doesn't involve deep knowledge about the cvs tools etc.
> > > It's just a simple mv(1) :-)
> > 
> > You have to know this backup exists, especially since it's a hidden
> > file... I remember looking for such a thing, but didn't think to look
> > for a hidden file ;)
>
> So, fix cvs(1) :-)

You're joking, right?
Otherwise I don't understand why we should try to go through the pains
of getting the behavior of cvs changed in order to make the symptoms of
the problem easier to cope with, rather than fixing the root of the
problem, which is make dist and a thing that we from a GNOME side of
things can much easier fix. Should be obvious to anyone which thing is
both better in the long run to fix *and* easier to fix.

Also, from a GTP perspective, I believe that it is in our interest to
make the entry barrier for volunteering translators lower, so as to get
more contributing translators, translations for more languages, and more
complete translations. We still have a lot of room for improvement in
those areas. Thus, not requiring translators to have anything but the
most basic knowledge of cvs when they start contributing to cvs is a
natural consequence of that, especially since we can expect some
translators to be more fluent with languages than with deeper technical
tools and issues.

With time, contributors ususally get more familiar with cvs, but how cvs
works in every detail is not a trivial thing to grasp right from the
start. In particular not the behavior when there is a conflict, with the
file you worked on having its content altered to neither be the content
of what's in cvs nor the content you entered, but rather something
inbetween with cryptic cvs diff syntax, and that in addition makes an
invalid po file. Neither does it help the intuitiveness that the content
you entered has instead been placed in a hidden file with mostly
unhelpful, cryptic naming. I could go on and on with interesting
usability "features" of cvs, but that's besides the point. The point is
that cvs is non-trivial to grasp, something that I can still remember
from my first encounters with cvs and that other new contributors keep
confirming all the time, and that I was reminded by when writing the
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/tutorials/gnome-i18n/translator.html
document. Surely nothing in there is any news to anyone with some longer
experience of cvs, but it still makes an awful lot of instructions and
cryptic stuff to learn for a new volunteer.
I've had requests for adding even more cvs-related instructions to that
document, in particular how to correctly remove files, but those
situations should be uncommon, so there's not much point including
instructions for that and make the cvs instructions even longer. In a
similar fashion, cvs conflicts should be uncommon and not require
additional instructions in that document. The fact that they aren't
uncommon is a problem.

Do you disagree with anything of this, or am I misunderstanding you?


Christian