From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Christian Stimming Subject: Re: [PATCH] l10n: de.po: translate "index" as "Index" Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2015 21:26:48 +0200 Organization: Alumni Technische =?UTF-8?B?VW5pdmVyc2l0w6R0?= Hamburg-Harburg Message-ID: <3813728.oJDPxEPYet@cs-pc> References: <1432925644-26231-1-git-send-email-ralf.thielow@gmail.com> <556C0BFD.3060806@drmicha.warpmail.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Cc: Ralf Thielow , git@vger.kernel.org, sbeller@google.com, tr@thomasrast.ch, jk@jk.gs, phillip.szelat@gmail.com, matthias.ruester@gmail.com, magnus.goerlitz@googlemail.com To: git@drmicha.warpmail.net X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Mon Jun 01 21:35:28 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YzVUe-0000Kw-Ca for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Mon, 01 Jun 2015 21:35:28 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751797AbbFATfY (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 Jun 2015 15:35:24 -0400 Received: from smtp6.rz.tu-harburg.de ([134.28.205.36]:36503 "EHLO smtp6.rz.tu-harburg.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751448AbbFATfW (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 Jun 2015 15:35:22 -0400 X-Greylist: delayed 505 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Mon, 01 Jun 2015 15:35:22 EDT Received: from mail.tu-harburg.de (mail.tu-harburg.de [134.28.202.179]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "mail.tu-harburg.de", Issuer "TUHH CA in DFN-PKI Global - G01" (verified OK)) by smtp6.rz.tu-harburg.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3m0mhv4k6bzGmT0; Mon, 1 Jun 2015 21:26:55 +0200 (CEST) Received: from mailspring.rz.tu-harburg.de (mailspring.rz.tu-harburg.de [134.28.202.181]) (user=alucst mech=PLAIN) by mail.tu-harburg.de (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id t51JQtJj023287 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Mon, 1 Jun 2015 21:26:55 +0200 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=tuhh.de; s=x2015-23; t=1433186815; bh=t/JJ43lQMDQArjT/wUze7yhdUCzYCgj0W/qmyCwFWck=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:Message-ID:In-Reply-To:References: MIME-Version:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-Type; b=C7MgvRUxsMoqumyRNn+IIcFaqYMg7VibwvwDXPS21TmO3+oaRECUIF698N63BVD/b QjZqZkBO7yTdgBuMzD0WuExzoc2QLFFMd4RRKrY2iDmCMwueazNhLNckS1/zCPeNjt BCtFABDdArgW4KE3dor32qvCX6nDpRi38mZAIaRY= User-Agent: KMail/4.13 (Linux/3.13.0-52-generic; KDE/4.13.3; x86_64; ; ) In-Reply-To: <556C0BFD.3060806@drmicha.warpmail.net> X-Scanned-By: TUHH Rechenzentrum content checker on 134.28.202.179 Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Am Montag, 1. Juni 2015, 09:38:37 schrieb git@drmicha.warpmail.net: > Ralf Thielow venit, vidit, dixit 29.05.2015 20:54: > > The term "index" is translated as "Staging-Area" to > > not confuse beginners who don't know about Git's index. > > > > Since the term "staging area" doesn't appear in original > > Git messages (not even in the glossary) and "index" is a > > well known term for experienced users, we should treat > > "index" as a Git term and therefore don't translate it. > > Super! :) Sorry to contradict, but: No, not super. Again I question the whole point of such a denglish translation. Do you want to present the git wording to those experienced users who know git anyway? Then you are probably better off suggesting those guys to stick to the original English messages. Or do you want to describe what's going on in a language that somewhat resembles understandable German? In that case, "Index" is a particularly bad choice to keep as an unchanged word. To make things even worse, "index" is a particularly bad wording choice in English in the first place. Why? Because the e.g. git book of course has an "index": That's the page where you can look up certain keywords that will then reference you to the place where those words are being used. It never occurred to me why anyone on earth ever thought this word might give a good metaphor for what it should mean in the git context. Well, maybe some internal code gurus will now immediately argue how this is exactly how git's index works internally. Guess what? As a git user, this is not a single bit of how the index concept is visible to the user. As a git user, the index has something to do with "already but not yet", or with "not only in the working copy but also already somewhere else", or with "not yet in a commit but somewhat half- way there". All those points could maybe be captured in some other wording, but for sure neither in the English "index" nor (and even less) in a German "Index". Hence, if the word isn't part of a command name, the translators are free to decide which word to use, and you could probably choose some word that is actually helpful in the target language. "Index" is not. In case you belong to the 0.5% of version control users who are experienced enough with git to know and understand the English term "index", feel free to stick with that word. But in case you target this translation to the somewhat majority of version control users, I suggest you better think again. Thanks for reading. Best Regards, Christian PS: Just for the record: If I explain git to new users and we reach the "index" concept, my explanation routinely says "This concept is called 'index' but it has nothing to do with any associations you make with that word. Better remember this thingy as *** and replace the termin 'index' with *** every time you read about it." where "***" is my preferred translation. The facial expressions of the audience regarding "index" regularly confirm this approach as the better one. I never encountered anyone who says "Oh, but isn't 'index' a much better term for this than what you said..."