I don’t think you can localize to a language. You localize to a region, you translate to a language. Localization goes beyond mere translation, they are different concepts.
We call both localization, because what you’re doing is branching out controls, formats, and such to a locale, which is not necessarily a location or a region. You could have en-us, en-ca, en-us, en-uk, en-au, en-sp, or you just have en to translate it to English and call it a day
Not to tech bros, they were to hungover from their sketchy frat bro ragers full of men hoping to get lucky and commit sexual assault to pay attention in that one humanities class they took freshman year.
Language studies are an obsolete profession to them, the future they have built is bullshit all the way down, there is nothing left to study other than the language of utter incompetency and proud willful ignorance steeped in chauvinism which they eminate like a 2005 vintage Abercrombie & Fitch mall store eminated vapors of shitty cologne.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment but in most software systems localization does not just mean translation either. Localization as a practice includes date, time, and number formats, preferred units of measure, language and dialect, and sometimes a few other things. I’m not saying localization or translation are done well, or that the Big Tech companies give any shits about it at all, but its not as though computer professionals are all entirely ignorant of these distinctions.
I mean I take your point but again you are just describing the technical details of localization. The little fiddly bits that can be automated and neatly dealt with by a computer or person with an accountant’s mindset for making sure little things plug neatly and cleanly into other little things. Any concept of “localization” that does not include careful consideration of the vast territory of nuance that surrounds the much easier technical details seems useless to me in the context of solving any actual real world problem.
When it comes to the actual hard parts about localization I am fairly certain almost every computer professional I have ever met or talked to does not understand them. The more successful a computer person is in their career the more they tend to think everything in the world functions like computers and thus they don’t need to try to understand alternate systems or phenomena that don’t adhere to their narrow tool belt of critical thinking strategies that can’t handle even a homeopathic amount of ambiguity or subjective nuance.
These types of people spend all day thinking in programs and then go home and play factorio and they think they are the smartest people in the entire universe, and they are idiots. Very very skilled idiots.
On that–and as a highly skilled idiot myself–we fully agree!
The adage “social problems don’t have purely technological solutions” is something I’ve known for years yet must continuously remind myself of and reintegrate it for new issues.
It’s a shame the old vision of computer specialists integrated into empowered teams building bespoke solutions never really came to pass. Not enough profit in that model, when mass market slop is so lucrative.
It’s a bit akward to respond to that, since I did a Master’s in CompSci, lol. At least I can distance myself from that massive burn a little by saying that I was the akward virgin type and didn’t like the machine learning courses I had to take.
Language studies seem fascinating to me, I always found the stuff my sister was doing in her studies pretty interesting. A friend of hers was even trying to become an interpreter, that sounds so difficult.
I don’t think you can localize to a language. You localize to a region, you translate to a language. Localization goes beyond mere translation, they are different concepts.
We call both localization, because what you’re doing is branching out controls, formats, and such to a locale, which is not necessarily a location or a region. You could have en-us, en-ca, en-us, en-uk, en-au, en-sp, or you just have en to translate it to English and call it a day
Not to tech bros, they were to hungover from their sketchy frat bro ragers full of men hoping to get lucky and commit sexual assault to pay attention in that one humanities class they took freshman year.
Language studies are an obsolete profession to them, the future they have built is bullshit all the way down, there is nothing left to study other than the language of utter incompetency and proud willful ignorance steeped in chauvinism which they eminate like a 2005 vintage Abercrombie & Fitch mall store eminated vapors of shitty cologne.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment but in most software systems localization does not just mean translation either. Localization as a practice includes date, time, and number formats, preferred units of measure, language and dialect, and sometimes a few other things. I’m not saying localization or translation are done well, or that the Big Tech companies give any shits about it at all, but its not as though computer professionals are all entirely ignorant of these distinctions.
I mean I take your point but again you are just describing the technical details of localization. The little fiddly bits that can be automated and neatly dealt with by a computer or person with an accountant’s mindset for making sure little things plug neatly and cleanly into other little things. Any concept of “localization” that does not include careful consideration of the vast territory of nuance that surrounds the much easier technical details seems useless to me in the context of solving any actual real world problem.
When it comes to the actual hard parts about localization I am fairly certain almost every computer professional I have ever met or talked to does not understand them. The more successful a computer person is in their career the more they tend to think everything in the world functions like computers and thus they don’t need to try to understand alternate systems or phenomena that don’t adhere to their narrow tool belt of critical thinking strategies that can’t handle even a homeopathic amount of ambiguity or subjective nuance.
These types of people spend all day thinking in programs and then go home and play factorio and they think they are the smartest people in the entire universe, and they are idiots. Very very skilled idiots.
On that–and as a highly skilled idiot myself–we fully agree!
The adage “social problems don’t have purely technological solutions” is something I’ve known for years yet must continuously remind myself of and reintegrate it for new issues.
It’s a shame the old vision of computer specialists integrated into empowered teams building bespoke solutions never really came to pass. Not enough profit in that model, when mass market slop is so lucrative.
It’s a bit akward to respond to that, since I did a Master’s in CompSci, lol. At least I can distance myself from that massive burn a little by saying that I was the akward virgin type and didn’t like the machine learning courses I had to take.
Language studies seem fascinating to me, I always found the stuff my sister was doing in her studies pretty interesting. A friend of hers was even trying to become an interpreter, that sounds so difficult.