Localizing Code Snippets - Part II

Last week I posted on the dilemma of how to localize Code Snippets, the selected pieces of your documentation that you shoehorn into XML files so that Visual Studio can present them in tool-tip-like fashion to the user while s/he is writing code that depends on your documentation.

My goal was to ensure that the process of grabbing these bits of documentation (mostly one-sentence descriptions and usage tips) was internationalized, so that we could run it on translated documentation and save money. This has proved more difficult than anticipated.

Here is the lesson: If you think it's hard to get internal support for internationalizing your company's revenue-generating products, just try to get support for internationalizing the myriad hacks, scripts, macros and shortcuts your developers use to create those products.

In this client's case, it makes more sense to translate the documentation, then re-use that translation memory on all of the Code Snippet files derived from the documentation. It will cost more money (mostly for translation engineering and QA, rather than for new translation) in the short run, but less headache and delay in the long run. Not to mention fewer battles I need to fight.

Discretion is the better part of localization valor.