Translations of the Guide

[xmalinov]

Is that a good idea to translate it? IMHO, it would be interesting in Russian (or Chinese)

[braydie]

This is a great idea @xmalinov! There's been a reasonable amount of support to move to gitbook so that we have an improved reading/writing experience, and fortunately gitbook supports multiple languages so we might be on to a winner with that one :smile:

[UbuntuLover]

是啊 如果有中文版本的会好很多的

[rccoder]

translate into Chinese？ I think I can help.

[xmalinov]

I have a small tip for better translating process: to adopt the Semantic Versioning for our purposes and use it for the Guide. It can make sync of the translation with the original document a bit easy. The translated version will be refer to a specific version. E.g.: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the: MAJOR version when you make the gitbook release of newer edition, MINOR version when you add a chapter or a whole section PATCH version when you make typo fixes.

[adhamenaya]

Great idea.. I can translate it to Arabic as well

[ImDineshSaini]

I can translate in Hindi India On Jan 15, 2016 1:36 PM, "Adham Enaya" notifications@github.com wrote:

Great idea.. I can translate it to Arabic as well

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/braydie/HowToBeAProgrammer/issues/45#issuecomment-171897402 .

[henriquesosa]

I can translate it to Portuguese. BR

[huanzhang]

I can translate it to Chinese as well. @rccoder :)

[RobertLRead]

I believe it has already been translated into Korea and Belarussian. I can't seem to find the translations however. I would of course be honored for anyone to undertake a translation.

[ujuc]

@RobertLRead This Koean version. to old... https://wiki.kldp.org/wiki.php/HowToBeAProgrammer

[bigla]

I could start translating it to german.

[UbuntuLover]

@huanzhang looking forward your Chinese version!

[ImDineshSaini]

Please let me know if I can start in Hindi On Jan 18, 2016 2:51 AM, "David Bensoussan" notifications@github.com wrote:

I can start the french one

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/braydie/HowToBeAProgrammer/issues/45#issuecomment-172384425 .

[henriquesosa]

i already get started to translate it into pt-br.

https://github.com/henriquesosa/HowToBeAProgrammer/tree/pt-br

[braydie]

This is all very exciting -- with the conversion to gitbook I think we'll be in a better position to provide the guide in multiple languages (gitbook multiple languages). I'll look to get the gitbook conversion merged in, and then restructure for multiple languages

[braydie]

I've merged the changes in to move us over to a gitbook-compatible repository so we are now in a position to start accepting pull requests for translations :+1:

[huanzhang]

:+1:

[kuangchanglang]

@rccoder just do it

[ahangchen]

I‘m translating it into Chinese too... https://github.com/ahangchen/How-to-Be-A-Programmer-CN

[huanzhang]

@ahangchen :+1:

[braydie]

@ahangchen amazing! :+1:

[adhamenaya]

I's translating the guide into Arabic as well... https://github.com/adhamenaya/HowToBeAProgrammer-AR

[ahangchen]

Chinese version done https://github.com/ahangchen/How-to-Be-A-Programmer-CN

[braydie]

Wow @ahangchen this is awesome! Would you be happy for me to lift what you've done into this repository and set it up so that it is a multilingual gitbook?

@adhamenaya your link didn't work for me.. has the repo been deleted?

[huanzhang]

@ahangchen :+1:

[ahangchen]

@braydie Of course, I'm glad to do that.

[braydie]

Thank you @ahangchen, it's now merged and available via gitbook :smile:

[ahangchen]

@braydie :+1:

[jewirth]

@xmalinov initially asked whether it's a good idea to add translations. This issue is without any contradiction yet. So I'd like to add another point of view here just for the sake of diversity of opinions:

Personally, I couldn't image being a programmer without understanding written English. Hence, does it make sense to learn how to program without understanding English at all?

I see severe drawbacks for those who try:

• learning: no doubt, most programming resources are English. Talks, Conferences, Books, Blogs...
• working: parameters, syntax-statements, comments in sources, error messages are mostly English
• creating: a programmer who creates source code using non-English variable names, comments and documentation creates products which only a minority of programmer's can maintenance

Well, I don't think translating is a bad idea. But it's not good either :-)

Idea: How's about adding a strong advice to learn English first - given the reasons above - into the translated versions?

[haydarai]

I'll do a translation for Indonesia version.

[braydie]

@jewirth that's interesting - I think initially there was no reason to not offer the guide in as many languages as possible. I agree that English is essential to be a professional programmer today, and I think there is enough to discuss on that topic to warrant it's own section (your thoughts @RobertLRead?).

This guide is quite conceptual - it doesn't really relate directly to a particular area of development, nor does it offer any code snippets. With that in mind, I think offering these concepts in as many languages as possible is a good thing - otherwise, you're relying on somebody having an excellent understanding of English before being able to embark on the journey towards being a programmer. Do you think somebody wouldn't be able to gain a basic understanding of the concept of debugging before learning English? I agree that actually working with code would be difficult (probably impossible), but conceptually somebody could understand it before actually using it in earnest.

Happy to keep this dialogue open, though - such an interesting idea. Thanks for providing another angle on this :smile:

[Nimdis]

@xmalinov I would like to participate in the translation to Russian

[Nimdis]

@jewirth I'am familiar with many people in Russia that understand english very bad despite this they are very good programmers. And after all this would be useful for children and students.

[braydie]

@xmalinov re: semantic versioning - 100% agree. Suppose it makes to sense to version each page as this will allow for easy comparison across languages to see if a page is out of date

[ahangchen]

I have a suggestion.

Checking for the pull requests without understanding corresponding language is not a good idea.

Fixes for other languages version should first be push to that languages branch. After checked up by the origin translator, then it can be merged into this repository.

For example, adding a declaration like this:

If you want to fix the Chinese version, please open a pull request here: https://github.com/ahangchen/HowToBeAProgrammer

As a result, I open a pull request for this in the Readme file. #80

[braydie]

@ahangchen great idea getting a second set of eyes over each translation

[braydie]

In pull request #79 we've tried to follow the new way of handling translations - via a pull request on the original translation repository. It looks like it's probably not the most logical way of working, so I'm proposing the following:

If you provide the initial translation of the guide into another language, you will be made a contributor on this project and given the responsibility of reviewing future pull requests to 'your' translation

This will give us the best of both worlds - a single place to contribute, and a chance to review translations by more than one person.

[SZain]

I agree with @braydie from your last comment. So shall I begin translating in Urdu then ? (I personally struggle to understand some terms or meaning in English. I usually translate or get the meaning of words/terms from english to my language in order to understand. I think this is a great idea.

[braydie]

@SZain I'd love to see it translated into Urdu - that would be awesome! If you feel you might struggle with translating 100% accurately, just submit the pull request and hopefully we can get some collaborators on it to help :smile:

[braydie]

Hit enter accidently when making the change - but I've updated the Contributions page to reflect the new guidance on translations - https://github.com/braydie/HowToBeAProgrammer/commit/054e0023a6724445d582a2ca43eebadc914adfd8

[ali4ever4]

I am also interested in contributing to translate into Arabic @adhamenaya please let me know how I can support your work in translation to Arabic and how you are following version updates in the original guid ?

[jimmysoda]

I started translating to Spanish: https://github.com/jimmysoda/HowToBeAProgrammer-ES

[rraulg5]

I can help with translation to Spanish

[yammesicka]

I will start translating it into Hebrew soon.

[gorohoroh]

Is it true that no one has started work on a Russian translation so far?

[Robot72]

I decided to try it. I began to translate into Russian.

[girol]

The project is still accepting translations?

[braydie]

Hi @girol we are indeed! At present we've got English, Chinese and Japanese.

[girol]

@braydie fantastic! How do I contribute? I'm thinking about pt-br translation. The other translation project seems to be abandoned. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong. 🐭

[braydie]

Best way to get started would be to fork the repository and in your own copy create a new folder named 'pt-br' and take a copy of the chapters and sections from the English version to translate from. In order for gitbook to pick up the new translation you'll also need to update the langs file at the root of the repository.

Once your translation is complete you can submit it via a pull request!