Now now…I think that dhdd has a valid point…I knew as soon as I read it that he'd be lambasted for saying it, and I probably will be as well for defending it, but I don't mind. 
There's a benefit to picking a specific language (be it English, German, or Pig-Latin) and focusing on completeness. We're already having a hard time keeping our documentation up with what is in the repository. The wiki is constantly out-of-date with the trunk and you know that will become so much more problematic when you have wiki entries that are based on versioned content that is then translated to other languages. The majority of people on this forum (unless you Germans are just using translators and don't actually know the language) know English at least to a level of comprehension. It makes sense to keep everything in a single language for simplicity alone. However, we already have such a huge problem of not having enough documentation. So does it really make sense to pull people into a project to translate existing (limited) documentation when they could be better serving time adding documentation that is lacking?
Yes, I'm American and I reject you dang foreigners and your strange languages. 
…I figured what I had written was too tactful and feared nobody would be offended, so I added that last part to make up for it. :roll:
DISCLAIMER: The above does not reflect the views of the jME Developers, a general consensus among other Americans, or even necessarily that of the author.
Oh, no… don't worry, I understand perfectly basically ALL the benefits of a unified language… the fact that it is English and nothing else obviously comes from a history of centuries first with the British Empire and now with the USA… although I dislike the reasons behind it, I understand it is practical to have only one language. Since it is already everything in English it makes perfect sense to keep it the way it is…
However, I believe that if you are going to post a message as
dhdd said:
i really have to say that EVERYTHING should remain in english. everybody (who's relevant) speaks english more or less fluid and understands what he/she reads. Toying with other languages and thus forking things can only lead to confusion and error proneness.
Talking about people's worth (note the relevant part, as I know you have noted) without even an attempt to be tactful just seems plain harsh. I don't believe I am insulting him with my reply, but maybe I am ( :? )... I mean, I didn't give more reason for a flame war, right?, right?... anybody? :P
Anyway... I have been rude before in these forums, and people have been patient, so I guess it is my turn ;)
its often not easy for us dang foreigners to find the right words to express ourselves
i think he didn't mean it to sound that harsh.
I agree that we shouldn't translate the documentation (yet). When jME goes into version 2.0 most of the docs would be obsolete to some extent and then a revision would be necessary… Once the jME codebase becomes more mature and stable official translations could be submitted.
Talking about people's worth (note the relevant part, as I know you have noted) without even an attempt to be tactful just seems plain harsh.
I think what he meant when he said 'relevant' is anybody who would be interested in reading documentation, not necessarily somebody who is important.
duenez said:
I sure hope you are not a native English speaker, for that comment can certainly give a very biased and wrong impression.
no, my native language is german ... so i can say that? ;)
Momoko_Fan said:
I agree that we shouldn't translate the documentation (yet). When jME goes into version 2.0 most of the docs would be obsolete to some extent and then a revision would be necessary.. Once the jME codebase becomes more mature and stable official translations could be submitted.
Talking about people's worth (note the relevant part, as I know you have noted) without even an attempt to be tactful just seems plain harsh.
I think what he meant when he said 'relevant' is anybody who would be interested in reading documentation, not necessarily somebody who is important.
exactly, thx :wink:
everybody relevant was meant to mean: everybody who programs. i think all of us geeks speak at least a little english.
Dutch, not on the list I see… (even though, for example, it's 7th most used on wikipedia closely behind italian and japanese)
wow, didnt know there were so many german developers here~
For what it might be worth:
I have been involved into early programming teaching to people in highschool (not coming from a very technologically advanced country, programming in highschool and before is basically non-existing), I can say that there are a LOT of people that are very talented, have much potential, don't exactly lack motivation, but simply have a hard time learning English at the same time they are learning programming. You might want to laugh, but I have taught people how to program without them knowing even what does it mean while in their native language.
After some 6 months, these kids were programming pretty advanced stuff (dynamic programming, optimal path, etc), but only because they were taught and did not have to struggle with documentation in another language. I even have some of my students starting to use jME for some personal projects. Now, the thing is that they can maybe read English somewhat, but they are definitely going to miss some important concepts, specially Wiki articles and such.
In a way, I understand the logistic problems of creating and maintaining a multi-language system, but I cannot but take the side of the people that are starting to learn (both English and programming).
My two cents.
Just visited a little IBM security seminar where we had a guy from IBM tell us of their product they are also offering to Homeland Security among other institutions. The product follows TV channels and translates the content (say chinese or arabic) to text, translates that to English and if need, synthesizes it back into English, if need be in real time.
Now. Considering they can pull it off from verbal communication, why in gods name are there not any decent online translators? google and babelfish suck pretty much. sigh.
I can so understand what duenez says. The best option might be automatic translation… but one that skips translating source code. And it would have to be on a higher level than it is available now.
neakor said:
wow, didnt know there were so many german developers here~
You probably meant German Speaking developers :D
llama said:
Dutch, not on the list I see.. (even though, for example, it's 7th most used on wikipedia closely behind italian and japanese)
I've got that list (and order by "most often spoken") from some other site - dutch was not under the top 10 there... and as "other" is not chosen that often it does not seem to occur here more than once as well. :)
Well seems like you got a list of most spoken languages (either world wide, or amongst internet users). For wikipedia just go to wikipedia.org frontpage. In any case I can promise you there are more dutch, and that there is more dutch content on the internet than say norwegian :)
I used wikipedia as an example because personally think the amount of (user generated) content on the web in a better indicator of how succesful a documentation translation project will be, than which language is spoken more in the world.
That said, I have no intention of translating anything into dutch, do I don't really miss it on the list that much (I know there's several other dutch jME users though, in the forum too)
As a German & German speaking developer I support dhdd's view.
For Germans it's easier to learn() English compared to French people etc. English is widely accepted, and most younger people know it at least at tourist level. If you want to do anything in IT you will be exposed to English sooner or later, and for that reason most German universities encourage the use of English. So I guess most German & German speaking developers here have no problem with English.
() Pronunciation is a different story…
When will requests for translation start? As I might have stated already, I'll be more than happy to make the Norwegian translation. Mind you, as long as there's either a Norwegian, Danish or Swedish translation, all of these (including big parts of Finland) will be understood by those three countries. Though on the other hand, the more translations the merrier. As far as I know, being able to say "translated to more than 30 languages!" greatly adds to credibility, no?
"For Germans it's easier to learn(*) English compared to French"
Unless I misunderstood what you said, I think it's the opposite: it's easy for french people to read english with only the very basics but a pain to speak english (maybe one of the reason tourists think we don't know anything in english :-p).
I've been told by a german teacher that english pronunciation is super easy for germans but as I learnt a bit of german, I didn't notice anything similar to english (or just a few words).
the english grammar is easier thatn the german grammer (and the french grammar is much harder than the german) and the 'speaking melody' is quite the same in GER/EN. i guess thats the reason the french have a hard time speaking english.
Sadr said:
When will requests for translation start?
Just to clarify this: there are no plans from the devs to actively translate documentation (or API :P). The reason for this thread were ideas from the community to translate some stuff (and curiosity, of course). But from the results of this poll and discussion it seems to be wasted time to translate anything...
Jeah, But these People, want waste their Time know now, which language is preferred.
I had some moments, where a translation would helped a lot. But these Situation are realy seldom. And now I know, I'm not alone XD
Well obviously the developers have more important things to do than to translate documentation.
Of course it would be a Community driven project, where everyone can contribute in a wiki type of style, its a open source project after all.
But then problems arise, how do you keep the English and foreign languages synchronized?
Maybe person A is ready and willing to do the initial translation, but what is in a year? Then you maybe have a Dutch java doc which is not up-to-date.
You could argument that even a basic JavaDoc is useful, even if this new parameter is not yet documented.
Wee see this problem already in the official jME Wiki, which gets outdated relatively fast.
I'm still unsure if its a good or bad idea.
One Idea that cam in my mind would also be, keep the JavaDoc in English but create Wiki pages in foreign languages.
So that this kid from Romania which is eager to learn jME but dosen't speak english, can look up the Beginners Guide in its own native language. And this way slowly get comfortable to the jME terms.
btw. even the microsoft windows support pages are machine translated, so that might be even another option, but i agree that machine translation often leads to unreadable text.