| <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> |
| <html> |
| <head> |
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> |
| <meta name="author" content="Tinuola Awopetu"> |
| <meta name="keywords" content="NetBeans IDE, NetBeans Platform, NetBeans Translation Project, NetBeans Multilinguals, Brazilian Portuguese"> |
| <title>For Users by Users: NetBeans 5.5 Translated into Brazilian Portuguese</title> |
| </head> |
| <body> |
| <h1>For Users by Users: NetBeans 5.5 in Brazilian Portuguese</h1> |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| To borrow a line from an old African proverb: It takes a community—of |
| NetBeans users—to spear-head a successful translation project. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| As Brazilian developers start to work within the newly released |
| Brazilian Portuguese version of the NetBeans 5.5 IDE, many may be |
| surprised to learn that the version of the IDE in their native language |
| was made possible thanks to a handful of users like them. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| The recent release of the NetBeans 5.5 IDE in Brazilian Portuguese is a |
| testament to the efforts of NetBeans <a href="../../community/articles/brazil55-contributors.html">community members and Java |
| developers</a> in Brazil who collaborated |
| through the NetBeans Translation Project to help localize the IDE for |
| their fellow Brazilian developers. <br> |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <div style="text-align: center;"> |
| <a |
| href="../../images_www/articles/brazil55/brazil-nb-help-big.gif" |
| target="_top"><img alt="" |
| src="../../images_www/articles/brazil55/brazil-nb-help.gif" |
| style="width: 393px; height: 303px;"></a> |
| <a |
| href="../../images_www/articles/brazil55/brazil-nb-about-big.gif" |
| target="_top"><img |
| alt="" |
| src="../../images_www/articles/brazil55/brazil-nb-about.gif" |
| style="width: 393px; height: 303px;"></a><br> |
| </div> |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| Attracting a wider, more diverse |
| audience of users has always been a core goal of NetBeans. But even as |
| the NetBeans IDE and Platform continue to rapidly gather fans worldwide the |
| daunting challenge of localizing the IDE for legions of non-English |
| speaking users remains a constant. The NetBeans Translation Project is |
| an attempt to handle the challenge of localization by relying on the |
| very same community of users it proposes to help. The project provides |
| guidance and support for users to create versions of the NetBeans IDE and |
| Platform, and Netbeans.org web pages in their native languages. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| According to NetBeans' new <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/roumen/entry/netbeans_podcast_%2319_-_interview"> |
| Community Manager |
| </a> Bruno Souza, the project is essential |
| to the growth of NetBeans. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| "NetBeans has such a large and diverse community that the only way our products |
| can evolve to meet the requirements of all is if the community gets involved. |
| The Translation Projects is an examples of this: the community taking on the |
| task of adapting NetBeans to suit their own realities and requirements." |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| When the localization project for Brazilian Portuguese was announced |
| (initially for NetBeans 5.0) the community’s response and the |
| coordination efforts were unparalleled. A team of 12 developers led by |
| Michel Graciano, a Java programmer and active NetBeans user, joined |
| forces to deliver a Brazilian Portuguese version that would launch in time with |
| two other multilingual projects for Japanese and Simplified Chinese. <br> |
| <br> |
| As the Brazilian Portuguese project morphed to keep up with NetBeans |
| IDE’s upgrade to 5.5, members of SouJava, Brazil's largest Java User Group, |
| were instrumental in publicizing the translation project, and also providing |
| support and feedback. Bruno Souza, who introduced several developers to the project, |
| also served as consultant and cheerleader for the active members |
| working tirelessly on the translations. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| For Graciano and his team, which included Leonardo Galvão, the |
| Editor-in-chief of both <i><a href="https://netbeans.org/community/magazine/">NetBeans Magazine |
| </a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.devmedia.com.br/javamagazine/"> |
| Java Magazine Brazil</a></i>, the main |
| challenge, not surprisingly, was coordinating a scattered team of |
| volunteers with already demanding professional lives. The group |
| communicated primarily through email and Wiki pages that Graciano |
| created to track the team’s work and progress. Other pages offered |
| instructions on issues such as using the translation tools, filing |
| bugs, clarifying terminology and grammar, and more. <br> |
| <br> |
| Although the work |
| was often challenging and the volunteers worked on their time, most |
| would agree with team member Henrique Meira, one of the top-three contributors, |
| who said the payoff was the |
| satisfaction that came from participating in the translation project. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| Souza hopes the work done by the Brazilian team will encourage other |
| community members to start similar translation projects. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| "The [Brazilian] group did a great job of organizing and streamlining their work. |
| And along the way they established relationships with people at Sun and NetBeans. |
| These are useful steps for other initiatives." |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| Thanks to the invaluable work of the Brazilian team, Brazilian |
| developers working with the NetBeans 5.5 IDE are unlikely to find |
| themselves lost in translation. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| There is still time for more NetBeans users to take part in the |
| translation project for the Brazilian Portuguese version—by signing up for the testing phase. |
| The deadline has been extended to January 31, 2007, and participants will |
| have a chance to win an iPod. <a |
| href="http://nblocalization.netbeans.org//pt_BR/5.5testingcontest.html"> |
| Sign up now</a>.<br> |
| <br> |
| <h2>Meet team leader Michel Graciano and team member Henrique |
| Meira</h2> |
| <br> |
| <h5>Michel Graciano</h5> |
| <h3>Can you tell us a bit about yourself? |
| </h3> |
| Currently, I am a Java desktop developer, working mainly with Swing and |
| NetBeans. I’ve been a NetBeans user for about four years; a Java |
| programmer for about five. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>How did you hear about the localization project? </h3> |
| I subscribe to a number of important NetBeans mailing lists. I saw some discussion about |
| the translation project, and decided to join the team when it was focused on 5.0. |
| The translation project was a chance to work more closely with the |
| NetBeans development team—to reduce the distance between users and the |
| people who create the product. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <div style="text-align: center;"><img |
| alt="Leonardo Galvão, Michel Graciano, Bruno Souza" |
| src="../../images_www/articles/brazil55/leo-michel-bruno.jpg" |
| style="width: 420px; height: 267px;"><br> |
| <small style="font-style: italic;">From left to right: Leonardo Galvão, |
| Michel Graciano, Bruno Souza</small><br> |
| </div> |
| <h3>What were your biggest challenges as the project coordinator? |
| </h3> |
| There were several key challenges: consistency of the translation |
| style and terminology across many contributors; keeping the team |
| motivated and active; coordinating the translation reviews and commits. |
| To handle these, we used the <a href="http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/BrazilianTranslation"> |
| NetBeans Wiki pages |
| </a> to document team activities, processes, and |
| best practices. Additionally, we archived the translation memory |
| files for re-use on the Wiki. We also used our own language-specific |
| mailing list for team communication. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| Maintaining good translation quality was the main |
| concern for the leads because we had a heterogeneous team of |
| experienced and new translators and reviewers. So we assigned the |
| experienced translators to do reviews and had newcomers work on |
| translations. This approach worked quite well and |
| we were able to achieve our goal. The secret was not to be too autocratic, because |
| the team was doing the work voluntarily. But it was fun. Omega-T |
| , the translation memory editor, was a good tool for re-using translations from 5.0 and across the various 5.5 modules. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>Why is it important to localize NetBeans into Portuguese? |
| </h3> |
| In my humble opinion, localizing NetBeans minimizes problems for new |
| Java programmers who are Brazilian. Since many don't know English or are not yet experienced Java programmers, |
| reducing or eliminating the language |
| problem will make new users feel a better sense of accomplishment. Our main targets were |
| universities and education programs that offer Java classes. Another key point is |
| that the Brazilian government needs software in our |
| native language. If this application is not translated the government will not adopt |
| it as a development tool. Additionally, an initiative like this compels the |
| community, for example, the Brazilian NetBeans community, to become |
| more powerful.<br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>Your team’s work is a translation project success story; what |
| advice |
| would you give to others interested in starting something |
| similar? |
| </h3> |
| It is important to be well-organized and to have well-defined processes |
| and roles for all contributors. |
| Why? Because it is important for each contributor to see himself/herself as |
| an integral part of the project. When all the parts work well together, work |
| progresses. Otherwise, when someone has a problem, all processes are affected. |
| So, organize the roles, define goals, and set deadlines. And of |
| course, it is hard work, but the reward comes from seeing it done!<br> |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h5>Henrique Meira |
| </h5> |
| <h3>What was your introduction to NetBeans? |
| </h3> |
| I have studied and worked with Java since 2000. Some time later, I |
| started web development and discovered NetBeans 3.4. It's been my work |
| environment ever since. I love it! |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>What attracted you to the localization project? </h3> |
| I have professional reasons. Currently, I am working (parallel with |
| Data Integration Tool) on standalone tributary software to be built on |
| top of NetBeans, and one of the priorities is that it must be in |
| Portuguese. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3 style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Henrique Meira" |
| src="../../images_www/articles/brazil55/henrique.png" style="width: 394px; height: 256px;"><br> |
| </h3> |
| <br> |
| <h3>Can you tell us about your experience on the project? |
| </h3> |
| I worked mostly on translations and revisions to the builds. I started off |
| choosing main modules, then later larger ones, that needed to be |
| translated. I wasn’t particularly interested in accumulating points for |
| the contest because we did not have a lot of translators and I was |
| worried about us meeting the deadline. I moved on to build revisions |
| when more people began to join the group and I felt that I needed to |
| leave some modules for others to work on. When I completed some build |
| revisions, I returned to help with completing the translations, again |
| because of our deadline. We finished the project, so it worked out |
| well. <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>Was it a difficult transition moving from NetBeans 5.0 to 5.5? </h3> |
| There were no problems; though initially I was a bit apprehensive |
| because I wasn’t sure if all the translation done for 5.0 could be used |
| for 5.5. But Michel did a great job of merging the two versions. Also |
| working on 5.0 was helpful because it gave me the how-to tools I needed |
| to be able to work on the translation project. When we started on 5.5, |
| I didn’t have to learn anything different and was able to work faster. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>Multiple collaborators in different locations, how did the team |
| handle |
| that issue? |
| </h3> |
| It was a challenge to line up all translators to accomplish one goal and to |
| always keep the translations consistent among different modules. We |
| tried to maintain strong contact with each other by email or by instant |
| messenging. We would talk about doubts, make suggestions, anything |
| related to the project. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>What impact will the multilingual release have on Brazilian |
| developers? |
| </h3> |
| In general, the release will be very useful for anyone working on |
| applications that need to be built on top of NetBeans. Specifically, |
| for new users, NetBeans will become very attractive, mainly because it |
| gives them a chance to learn in their native language. For experienced |
| developers, I believe that it will take more time to get their |
| interest. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>Why is this? |
| </h3> |
| Because they are used to working in the English version! Like I did in the past. To change this, we need to seduce them with |
| literature that references the localized Brazilian Portuguese NetBeans |
| IDE. For this reason, I would like to translate a lot of tutorials from |
| the netbeans.org website. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <h3>How would you describe the experience of working with other |
| Brazilian |
| developers? </h3> |
| Very productive, and the most important: fun! <br> |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <a href="../../community/articles/brazil55-contributors.html"> |
| More contributors to the NetBeans 5.5 Brazilian Portuguese release</a>. |
| <br> |
| <h2> </h2> |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| The effort to make the NetBeans IDE available in a range of languages |
| continues. Community members interested in translating the NetBeans |
| IDE, Platform or creating netbeans.org pages in their native languages |
| should visit the <a href="http://nblocalization.netbeans.org//">Translation |
| Project</a> page. |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| </body> |
| </html> |
