January 30, 2006

I have spent the last 4 months doing-up my first drupal site. Today I was trolling the forums looking for help on translation and stumbled on this really interesting debate about whether translation should be included as a core component.

It's a shining example of how identity/politics can impact the design of an application.

the summary of the argument is this;

dev1:

"I am pretty certain that no modifications of the standard Drupal database scheme will get into core for i18n, simply because only very few sites will need it. I am afraid that your solution will generally have too much impact on core and will be rejected for this reason. Hear my warning.."

dev2 :

"Probably you mispelled the sentence. Those modifications make more sense to me:

* no modifications of the standard Drupal database scheme will get into core for i18n, simply because only very few core-Drupal-maintainers will need it
* no modifications of the standard Drupal database scheme will get into core for i18n, simply because only very few sites that currently run Drupal will need it

Nobody can claim that 'very few sites will need it' without showing some data that confirm that possibility. I mean: how do you know that? Any proofs, statistics? Any poll I am not aware of, previous studies? Any passage of Nostradamus works I have not read?
"

dev3

"I live in the UK in an area with a multiracial multicultural community. There are two projects I have been asked to help with in the past month. One, a web site for a project providing the community translators/interpreters for about 20 languages, and the other a Chinese school. I18n is essential for both of these, and apart from the difficulties of using multiple languages with Drupal, it would also be ideal. There must be many more potential uses of an i18n Drupal."

dev4, dev5, dev6
"ibid dev3 with variations"

dev7

"Why fuss about wondering whether or not there is a demand from Drupal users (not just developers) for i18n in core? Why not have a poll? Question could be just: how important is true multi-lingual Drupal to you? Would die without it / Very / So-So / Bof! / Really don't care..."

dev1
"I am afraid software development isn't really democratic. ;->>"

There you go... the truth will have out. And here I thought it was all just poor documentation ; )

Continued from main page..