[hgbook] Italian version available

[Stefano Tortarolo]

Hi Giulio,
10 days later... wow! Sorry for replying so late.
I'll try to sum up the main points I'd like to discuss with you...

2009/9/7 Giulio Piancastelli <giulio.piancastelli at gmail.com>:
>> I think we should stick with terms already adopted, 'fusione' is weird
>> but if svnbook uses it maybe we should use it as well.
>
> I don't think that being the first term to be used says anything about
> its quality or whether it is the most apt to the job. I'd like to talk
> about these issues rather than following a translation "just because"
> it came before. If there is a better word, I don't think I should not
> use it "just because" someone else used another word before.

It's not a matter of quality, it's a matter of what people are used to
hearing and using.
Another solution, in my opinion, could be writing a side note
explaining how other VCSs translated the same term, and then using our
new term.

>> By the way, speaking with other italians I always use 'merge/fare il merge'.
>
> Please keep doing it, if that's what works for you and your team! At
> least, you're not using "mergiare"! ;-)

Yes, 'mergiare' is terrible. :D

> However, in my opinion, you are not really "talking Italian" there.
> It's an Italian sentence where you dropped an English term; I could
> argue that it's not even a "technical term", but a common term used in
> a technical context, so as such it has a perfectly valid translation
> in Italian. (More on this later at the bottom of the message.)
>
> But I think I understand why you're doing it. I believe it's due to
> habit, comfort, continuous exposition to the English-based world of
> software. The cognitive effort to switch language in your head just
> isn't worth the "correct" use of the corresponding Italian term. This
> is OK when you are speaking e.g. to a co-worker, but I think that
> things work differently in writing/translating.

I agree with you, but we need to take in consideration the fact that
lots (most?) of our users have to deal with the English terms as well,
that's why I still believe that keeping the English terms, along with
the Italian ones, would be the best solution. What I'm suggesting here
is to use Italian terms, without hiding completely the English ones.
This could be a fair compromise, I guess.

>> In the current hg translation I used 'fare pull/fare push', why don't
>> we try to agree upon a common terminology?
>
> Ah, yes. I have looked at the Italian translation of Mercurial while
> translating the code snippets. I used some parts of it, but I changed
> (in the book) the parts that I didn't like.

The current translation is far from being perfect, that's why some
time ago I asked (in vain) for help on this ml.
Btw, I like 'aggiungo' and 'etichetta'.

2009/9/7 Giulio Piancastelli <giulio.piancastelli at gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Stefano
> Tortarolo<stefano.tortarolo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 2009/9/7 Paolo Berto <pberto at jupiter-jazz.com>:
>>> I think the terminology should be the *exact same* used by the english
>>> version of mercurial.
>>> So merge is merge, and "fare un merge" is correct from my point of view
>>> ("fare una unione" would be confusing from the usability side).
>>> All commands names should stay the same, and such names should be referenced
>>> across the text with original naming.
>>
>> Yes, that's what I think, too.
>
> Really? On lines 1626-1627 in the Italian hg-i18n file I read that
> "updating to %d:%s\n"
> has been translated to
> "sto aggiornando a %d:%s\n"
> Hmm. Isn't "update" the correct, *exact same* English terminology,
> here? Yes, indeed, coming from the "hg update" command! So, you should
> use the original naming because translating the term with "aggiornare"
> would be confusing from the usability side... (grin). Now tell me,
> what's the difference with the merge/pull/push case? :-P

You're right, I'll try to reformulate what I meant...
As long as we define somewhere (in that case in hg help update) that
'update' means 'aggiornare', I think it's absolutely correct to say
'Aggiorno a ...'.
The main point in translating a command line-based software like
mercurial is to ensure that new users will be able to use a specific
command correctly, even though their English skills are very low. In
order to achieve this, in my opinion it's very important to keep a
strong relation between the Italian translation and the actual hg
command.

Cheers,
Stefano