Hello everyone!
Today, I wanted to share my experience with my third PR as part of the Hacktoberfest.
If you have not been following this series, you can refer to my first Hacktoberfest post where I explain what Hacktoberfest is.
Intro
This hacktoberfest, as this is my first time, I wanted to try to work on different types of issues to diversify and expand my contribution. I learned that there are so many ways a person can help in the open-source community: you can work on code unrelated documentation work or be a maintainer. Additionally, I found out that many projects are in need of translations, as they want to globalize their application. As a trilingual, I decided that I should use those skills as well and not just focus on coding.
Repo
I have been looking for the issues related to translations using the advanced search in Github. I found this one repo called FreshRSS which is a self-hostable, free aggregator. One thing that surprised me in a good way was that they had their translation game all figured out. They have a contributing document as well as a special one specific to the translation contributions. They use Minz_Translate module, which allows dynamic translation. Basically, all lines to be translated are broken into arrays of strings which hold the value and the translated version. They have folders for every language.
Issue
They prepared issues for various languages for Hacktoberfest and I worked on one of them. Someone has already commented that they would like to work on it, but when an owner asked if there were any updates a few days later I noticed that the person is no longer active under the issue. So, I figured out that it was free again. They had the most lines already translated but as the project is huge, they still had many left.
Learning curve
I had absolutely zero experience with PHP, so my laptop was also not ready run any php related commands. So, I had to install the prerequisites. Also, I had to figure out where inside the program each line is used as the translation could be interpreted differently in every use case. I asked the owner where I could check out each line's location and he navigated me through the demo. After a long review of all the documents and demo, I have submitted the pull request.
Experience
The most of developers might think that coding is the hardest contribution type but translating is not that easy as it might seem. First, translating some IT or technical terms is not that straightforward and requires professional experience. Also, it is important to make sure that the writing style is very consistent throughout the translation. Plus, the translation can vary a lot as different languages have more variance than English. So, working on the translations you will not even notice how it might take you hours or even days to figure all out, especially as a newbie.
Nice reward
This project has a special credits document that has all contributors' information to highlight their work. This was my first time adding myself to something like this and it was so nice and cute.
Conclusion
I was very tempted to work on this issue as I could be someone who lets a project complete their full translation by filling all the gaps. They were so close and I am so happy I could help!
Top comments (3)
Translation is a good way for someone new to contribute to a project. If a project is organized well, the coding difficulty level is usually at a beginner level. And the outcome expands potential usage of the application.
Your PR was for Russian and you are writing here in English. What's your 3rd language? (I have a project with open translation issues, but already supports Russian.)
Agree! I am from Kazakhstan. I know Russian as we were part of the Soviet Union, but Kazakh is my mother-tongue language. What is your project about? I can share it with my classmates who are from all over the world and we all are participating in Hacktoberfest.
I have a post about it (link below). It doesn't have Kazakh yet if you are looking for a translation issue.
Hacktoberfest Progress Update: Translation Contributions Still Welcome
Vincent A. Cicirello ・ Oct 12 ・ 2 min read