Tools for manipulating message catalogs

[Hans Mulder]

In <1991Apr15.170901.18836 at dg-rtp.dg.com> eliot at chutney.rtp.dg.com (Topher Eliot) writes:
>Sure, in an ideal world I would like to have one huge build process that
>starts with my source archives for everything, and burps out a tape at the
>far end that I can ship to any customer, anywhere in the world, and have it
>work correctly, no matter what earlier versions of software they have on their
>machine.  I have yet to see any company that actually implements such
>a system, and I've worked at some of the largest computer manufacturers in
>the world.  The realities of getting things translated into other languages
>are horrendous.

You don't really expect a company to delay the release of their latest product
until they are able to bundle with it free message catalogs in a dozen major
languages, do you?

In the real world the product is shipped as soon as the English version of the
product is ready.  Simultaneously the message catalog (but not the executable)
is sent to the translator.  Non-English versions of the product hit the market
6 months later than the English version, at the earliest.  And they are sold
as separate products.

And combining the correct version of the executable with a translated message
catalog is really trivial, compared to the problem of getting the catalog
translated in the first place.

--
Hans Mulder	hansm at cs.kun.nl