Re: Design for Translation

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl>]

Dnia Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:39:11PM +0200, Mari Voipio napisał(a):
> John Devereux wrote:
> >But I would really appreciate any insights anyone may have.
> 
> I've got some experience on this. I'm sure my way is not optimal, but at 
> least it is an experience.

And a very interesting one, Mari!

I'd like to also add *my* five cents.

I've recently started (with a friend) to manage a, let's say,
medium-sized TeX project.  It is typesetting a journal for a scientific
society.  (We haven't actually typeset a single issue, but the first one
is coming...)  On of the first things we did was to decide on a very
strict policy of naming files.  We also put them in different
directories (one directory per paper and one big for an issue), and name
them accordingly (the point with naming files is *extremely* important -
if scores of people send you files, renaming them according to a strict
set of rules is a must!).

Another is to use a version control system; we went for Mercurial, since
(a) I have another friend, who is a strong advocate of python &
mercurial, so in case of trouble we have some support; (b) the only
other VCS I know is RCS, and this is prehistory (and it copes only with
single files, not directories!); (c) Mercurial's default (and indeed
only) way of working is to commit changes etc. to a local copy of the
repository and only then possibly communicating with a net repository
now and then; this comes rather handy if half the team does not have
internet acces at home (which is a deliberate decision of my friend, not
an infrastructural problem in Poland;)).  Believe me, with any larger
project a reasonable VCS is also a must.

As for the contributors (be them authors, translators or anything: if
they are not geeks, do not expect them to read any set of rules, user's
guide or anything longer than 1-2 pages (optimally 0.5-1 page).

Regards

PS. I was very sorry to read about Poles...  I apologize for your Polish
cooperants for using Word.  Keep in mind that here in Poland we have a
very strong TeX team (LM, Gyre!), but it is still not the majority of
the society;)...

-- 
Marcin Borkowski (http://mbork.pl)

888 * ostre słowa * ostra muzyka * ostra płyta
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