Re: Regarding QaMoose

[Arafat Medini <lumina at silverpen dot de>]

It's not about tea , well I love tea ;) but anyway... it's all about
being a member, having fun with us and working on any project YOU LIKE
to work on.

yours
Arafat

Am Sam, den 14.02.2004 schrieb Moustafa Mounir Elqabbany um 18:10:
> Assalamu alaikum sadati,
> 
> I've read the past couple of posts on the general and doc lists and I
> realize that some of you are really overworked and getting close to
> the point of burn-out.  However, as a relative newcomer here I really
> need to probe your collective minds to figure out what's going on,
> because some issues are troubling me.
> 
> At present, I am only interested in contributing to the development of
> a generalized dictionary.  This is my incentive behind offering to
> work on the wordlist.  While translating software into Arabic is a
> noble endeavour, it's not my cup of tea.  General translation, which I
> am interested in, and the technical translation of software packages
> are two very different beasts that require different tools and
> development philosophies.  It appears to me, and I am no expert, that
> gettext and its supporting tools were only ever intended to accomplish
> translation of software packages, and not to produce a general purpose
> dictionary.  To me -- and I want to reiterate that I have very limited
> exposure -- these tools lack basic features that are necessary to
> produce a general dictionary useful to people interested in natural,
> non-technical language.  If QaMoose is going to evolve into a
> general-purpose dictionary, it cannot rely on PO files.  These files
> don't have the structure to support all sorts of features that are
> necessary for general-purpose translation.  It's not just a matter of
> inserting more entries into the PO files.  Rather, the entries need to
> structured according to the constructs of natural language.  I don't
> think this is doable with PO files.  If I am wrong, please let me
> know.  On the other hand, QaMoose *can* make use of the wordlist
> project, by taking the input and putting each translated entry into an
> "uncategorized" bin under the untranslated entry's heading.  The
> people who work on QaMoose can then at least start with the
> uncategorized translations and categorize them as a first step.
> 
> The second thing I wanted to ask is: what, exactly, is the mandate for
> QaMoose and how does it differ from that of other online,
> English-Arabic dictionaries?  For example, some good starts are here:
> http://www.logosdictionary.com/pls/dictionary/new_dictionary.dictio_professional_window?u_name=&u_password=&u_code=4395&code_language=
> http://www.ectaco.com/online/diction.php3?refid=2579&lang=3
> (Notice how translations are categorized, especially in the case of
> the logos dictionary.)  Both of the above dictionaries are backed by
> commercial entities.  Perhaps the goal of QaMoose is to produce an
> opensource English-Arabic dictionary?
> 
> So, in summary, here's what I'm requesting:
>      1. If I'm wrong about PO files and gettext not being adequate
>         tools for the production of a dictionary, please let me know.
>      2. We open the floor for the design of a truly useful QaMoose.
>                         و بالله التوفيق و التيسير
> 
> -- 
> Moustafa Mounir Elqabbany مصطفى منير القباني
> (The above message uses Unicode (UTF-8) encoding.)
> 
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