Google Code-In 2012

I am mentoring for GCI for Haiku for the second time this year. This presentation is based on my experience as a mentor for Haiku in Google Code-In 2011. Hence the examples used in this presentation are mostly from Haiku. I hope, this presentation will be useful to any student as an introduction to Google Code-In.

Please note that this year the code-in rules are slightly changed.

Google Code-In

The reach of Google Code-In (GCI) is relatively lower in Sri Lanka (probably in other countries too), than its sister program Google Summer of Code. One major reason can be, the age group of 13 - 17 (pre-university students) is not much into programming, over generally into computers, like the university students of 18+ do, in third world countries like Sri Lanka. However, more importantly, the word is yet to be spread, regarding GCI, I feel.

This presentation resembles the Google Summer of Code presentation, I prepared for AbiWord/GSoC, in its style. This is based on my experience as a mentor for Haiku in Google Code-In 2011. Hence the examples used in this presentation are mostly from Haiku. I hope, this presentation will be useful to any student as an introduction to Google Code-In.

Special thanks to Krasimir Petkov, GCI mentor (Haiku) for his valuable input at several times, in shaping this presentation up.

An updated, GCI-2012 presentation is available here.

[Google Code-In 2011] Localizing Haiku

This year, I joined Haiku as a mentor for Google Code-in (GCI) 2011. This is specific to the GCI-2011 task that I have been mentoring for the localization of Haiku operating system. I will post about GCI in a more generic post for the wider audience soon.

Get used to the system

Make sure that you follow the localization guidelines specific to the project. For the Haiku localizations with the Haiku Translation Assistant (HTA), make sure to pick the correct language from the drop-down in the right hand side, under the label "Start Translating in..." If you are going to translate Haiku into Tamil, make sure to pick "Tamil". Also make sure that you have logged into the HTA before starting localization.

For example, if you are translating,

http://hta.polytect.org/catalogs/view/2/ta to Tamil, that's correct.

But if you are trying to translate

http://hta.polytect.org/catalogs/view/2/en to Tamil, that's wrong.

Join the relevant localization lists to get more information on the localization efforts for the particular project.
[Haiku i18n mail address -  haiku-i18n@freelists.org].

Translate only the strings. Not the notes below.
For example,
in
Pager
Note: A small radio device to receive short text messagesTranslate only "Pager". Not the "Note:" below.

When refreshing the page, HTA sometimes tend to reset itself to en_US. Hence make sure that you are not trying to locale en_US (for example, say Tamil - ta).

Before you start your localization from Pradeeban Kathiravelu, Ph.D.

10 Points Before you start your localization..

I am mentoring the localization tasks of Haiku into Tamil for Google Code-In 2011, and hence thought of providing a few suggestions for localizations. Some of these suggestions will be specific to Tamil, while sharing a few common characteristics with other languages.

1) Use the standard terminology

Make sure that you have the necessary reference and the language's latest accepted technical glossary with you. Don't invent your own words or phrases. If you don't know a word, leave it blank, rather than filling it with your guesses.

If you find a word not in the glossary, try to find the meaning from the other reliable sources. If you have found a translation for a word, make sure the translation matches the standard. If an acceptable translation for a phrase is first found, share that with the other team members, and with their approval consider using the word in the translation. Words that are found not in the glossary should be noted down and later can be included in the Glossary.

Systems such as HTA, expect the localizations to be verified by the language maintainer or the mentor, before marking the translations as verified. That is, a translated word can be marked as faulty, by the language mentors. 

2) Be consistent. 

For example, I notice the use of "ஜன்னல்" and "சாளரம்" interchangeably, for the same context. Pls stick to one. In this case, my recommendation is to use "சாளரம்". Don't ignore the existing conventions.

3) Don't use slang or spoken/broken language

Words like "இங்க" and "ஓடுது" are a very slang way of translation, and are grammatically wrong. Please use formal Tamil. Not any spoken variant of Tamil. We will reject the spoken forms of phrases, which are considered wrong in written format.

If something is considered wrong in your Tamil lessons, they are wrong in localization too. We can't get broken or grammatically wrong localizations with wrong spellings into the project. :)

4) Translate as phrases

The phrases should be translated as a whole, and not as word-by-word.

Let's take the phrase, "Update time interval:"

It should be translated as, "மேம்படுத்தல் நேர இடைவெளி" and not "மேம்படுத்தல் நேரம் இடைவெளி". This is something that differentiates the Indic languages from English.

Don't translate word-by-word. Instead, translate by complete phrases. Phrases like, "Add graph" should be translated as a whole in Tamil. Phrases like "சேர்க்கவும் (add) வரைபடம் (graph)" or "வரைபட சேர்க்கவும்" are not grammatically complete, and any native Tamil speaker can point that. It should be "வரைபடத்தைச் சேர்க்கவும்".

"Do you want to stop" should be translated as "நிறுத்த வேண்டுமா?" (want to stop?), instead of "நீ நிறுத்த வேண்டுமா?". Here we omit, "நீ", as that is obvious.

5) Translate for the context.

Some words may have different meanings according to the context. Be careful when localizing them. "Them" may not be "அவர்களை" when it refers to the plural of "it". It should be "அவற்றை".

"written by:" should be "எழுதியவர்:". "எழுதப்பட்டது" doesn't make sense in this context.

Think of,
"written by:Raja"
"எழுதியவர்:ராஜா" will be natural.
"எழுதப்பட்டது ராஜா" doesn't make sense.

So translate for the context. Do not translate as it is.

6) Be respectful to the user

Pls do not use "நீ". Use "நீங்கள்" instead. Similarly, don't use "நிறுத்து". Should be "நிறுத்தவும்". The program should refer to the user in a respective manner. We should not offend the user, by calling him in "singular", as the rule of Tamil.

7) Locales

Be specific to the correct locale. If you are translating for ta-LK, consider the conventions involved, and remember this can be different from ta-IN. Some projects do not have the locales. They just have the country code, ignoring the potential minor changes between the locales.

8) Don't translate the control strings

For example, leave the strings such as,

%lld ms

as it is.

Don't try to introduce blank space between these. Translations such as

% lld நொடி

and

% lld MS

are invalid.

Don't try to introduce blank space between the %lld.

Also, there is no need to transliterate units such as MB, as we use them as standards. Translating it as எம்பி doesn't make sense.

9) Don't just "Google Translate"

For example,

"CPU Usage" should be translated as "CPU பயன்பாடு"

where it has been translated as,

CPU Usage = CPU பயன்பாட்டை by Google Translate.

Google Translate is using a learning algorithm, and is not always correct. Moreover, it is not complete for Indic languages such as Tamil. Please translate on yourself, since we mark those Google Translated phrases as "Faulty", as most of them can be translated using better vocabulary.

10) Easy translations first
There may be a few phrases that you may not be able to translate. Focus on the phrases that you can translate easily first, than struggling with long phrases that may take more time for you to translate.

P.S: This post is an updated version of a post that was written a long time back.

Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit 2011

Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit
Google invites the mentors for a two day unconference over a weekend to discuss about the Google Summer of Code, the respective projects, FOSS in general, or whatever that is applicable for the set of geeks. Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit is an interesting event hosted by Google and the sessions are scheduled by the attendees themselves. Google pays for the flight and the stay for the two nights (Friday the 21st and Saturday the 22nd of Oct/2011), providing dinner with style for the two nights. The mentor summits are held at the Google Headquarters (Building 43), CA 94043, USA. The event schedule is completed only at the day of the summit, as an ideal unconference! [Have a look at the Mentor Summit 2011  schedule with the parallel unconference tracks]. 

AbiWord at the Summit

As a mentoring organization, AbiWord has been mentoring students for Google Summer of Code since 2006 - for 6 years consecutively, since the program was announced in 2005. In 2006, Martin Sevior represented AbiWord in the mentor summit [Read more on his experience at the mentor summit 2006]. I was, as a mentor from AbiWord for 2011, was really glad to represent AbiWord in  the summit for 2011. This was the second time, AbiWord being present at the summit. This year we had 4 students who successfully completed their summer, among the 5 who had their summer with AbiWord [Read more on my thoughts on Google Summer of Code 2011].

Stay at California (21st - 24th, Oct 2011)
This year, the summit was held on 22nd of October the Saturday and 23rd the Sunday. "WildPalms" and "Domain" were the hotels organized by Google for the stay for the two nights. Most of the mentors stayed at WildPalms, Sunnyvale, CA, where some of them stayed at Domain, as rooms in WildPalms filled up. 2011 was the biggest summit ever with around 360 participants, where it was around 200 last year, mentioned Carol. Wild Palms is a silent and simple hotel. It reminded me the structure of the typical hostels - but I like it. We had shuttles to and from Google. We also had shuttles connecting Domain hotel, for them to join the dinner at Wild Palms.

Scheduling the unconference sessions
The sessions were scheduled and held at different rooms at the Google Headquarters, in parallel tracks. Initially, everyone was given 30 seconds to introduce themselves and their session, to begin with. Each session spans for an hour. A location was picked from the available 16 rooms. Once introduced their sessions, each one writes down the proposed session in a paper, and posts that on the white boards available, which had a table drawn with "Time Intervals" against the "Location". Once everyone introduced and posted their sessions, everyone is given the option to vote for their preferred session. The voting is interesting. We move along the white board, and pick a session of interest for each time frame, and mark it with a circle. Once this is done, the circles are counted and considered a '+1', and the sessions are relocated to fit the size of the room, according to the interested audience. Some sessions had exceptionally huge preference votes, and were scheduled to be held at Tunis, which has room for 200. Other rooms fit the audience from 10 to 20.

Community Matters!!!111
I [my user profile in the wiki] proposed and coordinated the unconference session titled "Community matters", the Saturday 1.30 - 2.30 at "Algiers". We discussed how and why a community matters the most, how to build a community, the challenges faced, and overcoming them. The session notes can be found in the wiki [Needs credentials to access the wiki page].

I have blogged with the session notes for the wider audience [Read "Community Matters!!!111" in this blog]. However, Google Summer of Code mentors can access the wiki to read more about the Mentor Summit 2011. All the session notes are posted to the wiki.


From Sri Lanka

It was a long journey to Sunnyvale from Colombo! I traveled from Colombo (CMB) to Dubai (DXB), and to Los Angeles (LAX), followed by a local flight to San Jose (SJC). A cab from San Jose to Wild Palms is relatively cheaper (~38$), than from San Francisco (SFO). SJC is known as the airport of the Silicon Valley. I stayed one more night (Sunday night), since my flight was on Monday noon 12 pm. This was my first trip to the new world (Americas). It was a great experience seeing darkness at 3 pm in the sky of the north pole.

Mentor Summit

The summit went really well, starting with a warm welcome from Carol Smith, at "Tunis". I got the chance to meet many folks from many organizations, and listen to their interesting and crazy experiences. Everyone had at least a single interesting experience to share, during the tea, breakfast, or lunch. 2011 was the first year for many organizations (~50) in Google Summer of Code, and (the mentors from those organizations whom I had a chat) were impressed to hear the successful involvement of AbiWord in Google Summer of Code. I met Fridrich representing LibreOffice at the summit. It was really great to meet someone whom I have talked to, over the AbiWord IRC.

Haiku
Meeting the Haiku community was remarkable. Haiku is an MIT licensed open source operating system inspired by BeOS. We thought of a possibility to propose a project co-mentored by AbiWord and Haiku for Google Summer of Code 2012 - "Haiku port for AbiWord". There was also a discussion on this during GSoC 2009 too, which we couldn't make it at that time. Scott from Haiku also pointed out that AbiWord used to run perfectly on Haiku during the early days (well before I joined AbiWord at 2009). We have to go back to the history of AbiWord source code and get it back to build and run, which ceased to build. As we are more into gtk, we have never looked much into this yet, I feel. The relevant discussion can be found at abiword-dev mailing list. Refer to the Haiku FAQ to learn what Haiku is and what it is not.

Catroid

All the 4 mentors from the project Catroid were present at the summit. They were doing interesting demos with their Catroid project running on Android, over the corridors during the breaks. It was their first year at Google Summer of Code and Catroid is really excited as a young organization to participate in Google Summer of Code. By default, Google invites two mentors from each project, along with a waiting list to allow more interested mentors in first-come-first-served. Catroid was really lucky to have everyone around! :)


Marketing and Open Source
An interesting session on "Marketing and Spreading the word about the project/community", followed the session "Community Matters", in the same room (Algiers). How localizers help to widen the user community was discussed. The mentor from PostgreSQL mentioned that they have allowed independent local user/dev communities to own the site in their languages (French, Japanese, ..) Social media engagement (twitter, facebook, dzone) to spread the word of the community and project releases were discussed.

Student Salaries

The other two sessions I attended on the first day were on "Humanitarian FOSS", with the participation from OpenMRS, Sahana, and Ushahidi, and "Student Salaries". "Student Salaries" discussed about managing the GSoC's payment. It had a few controversial suggestions followed by a healthy discussion, whether each student should be paid equally, or based on their geographical location, or by the outcomes - a final outcome of the discussion was to propose a reward for the outstanding students - may be a GSoC Student Summit. 

Around Google

We took a group photo with all the mentors around, at the end of the first day. We also move around the Google Campus and also visited the Google Store. A room full of chocolates from Goolge, as well as from the mentors allover the globe was awaiting us throughout the summit! ;). The welcome desk was full of Google TShirts and give aways from Google and from the mentoring organizations - specifically stickers from the organizations. I took a few photos around the Google Campus. Feel free to view them in my Facebook album.

The Second Day

I attended the sessions at Tunis, the second day. "Non-profit infrastructure for software freedom" with the views from Software Freedom Conservancy, Free Software Foundation, and Apache Software Foundation, gave some insights in the non-profit infrastructures. "Fund raising 101" by Cat from Google provided some basic hints on successfully getting the open source project funded.

Wrapping Up!
A final speech from Carol ended the summit in a vote of thanks manner. Wait - No! Mentors were asked to provide their suggestions of improvement after her talk. Some encouraging, interesting and also funny comments were thrown, with room full of laughter and applauses. One interesting and usual suggestion was to have the summit at Europe next year. "I love you guys, but, sometimes, I hate you guys," replied Carol.

The Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit was surely a remarkable experience for everyone who attended. I would like to thank Google and Carol for organizing the Google Summer of Code as well as the summit, on behalf of the AbiWord team.