GNU bug report logs - #55250
[PATCH] Add Ukrainian tutorial

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Message #14 received at 55250 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Denys Nykula <vegan <at> libre.net.ua>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 55250 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#55250: [PATCH] Add Ukrainian tutorial
Date: Wed, 04 May 2022 23:05:14 +0300

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello Eli, thanks for your review. Sending another version.

> Moreover, we generally refrain from advertising MELPA regardless,
> because that collection doesn't distinguish between Free and non-Free
> software packages it hosts.  So for us to advertise that package,
> someone should submit it to either GNU ELPA or non-GNU ELPA; then we
> can think where in the Emacs documentation to mention it.

As a co-translator of the GNU philosophical articles, I understand the
importance of promoting free services only from within the app.  I can
ask the authors of the extension if they could contribute their
extension to ELPA.

> KOI8-U is mentioned there as the preferred encoding.  I
> understand you are saying this is obsolete, and Ukrainian users
> nowadays mostly use UTF-8 instead?  Does it mean most Ukrainian Emacs
> users are forced to customize their Emacs to prefer UTF-8?  Would it
> be possible for you to ask on some relevant forum whether indeed this
> is the case, so we have some more substantial basis for the decision
> to switch our defaults?

The common Ukrainian Emacs use scenario is: install a GNU/Linux
distribution with GNOME, KDE or XFCE (setting up the uk_UA.UTF-8
locale and adding the uk xkb layout to the system-wide input method
switcher by default), add GNU Emacs and try to edit text.

Other than installing reverse-im and/or learning to toggle the input
method, no further changes have been needed to become minimally
productive; from what I see, the new files Emacs creates are UTF-8
with default settings, because my language is not in the
locale-preferred-coding-systems exception variable.

However, the Debian wiki translator writes that sort-lines uses a
wrong alphabet by default, so he has to pipe to an external sort:
https://linux.org.ua/index.php?topic=11793.0 -- I think that has
something to do with the default preferences.  Admittedly, I do not
have much experience with Emacs internals so please glance at that
topic using machine translation and suggest what documentation and
code I or somebody else could read to help people fix that.

> What about input methods? do you have any information regarding modern
> input methods used for Ukrainian when the keyboard doesn't support the
> Ukrainian characters directly?  Is the input method we set up by
> default in the Ukrainian language environment appropriate?

I do not know of anyone typing Cyrillic text on non-Cyrillic
keyboards.  But people do need Latin commands on Cyrillic keyboards.
For example, they type C-v to go past the first screen of the
tutorial.  That fails, so I have to explicitly instruct them to switch
their system keyboard layout to Latin.  No other desktop application
requires this, so without that explanation people conclude that their
Emacs is broken or that they are too stupid to learn it.

> The translations of the tutorial
> should be strictly translations, with no additional material specific
> to the target language.

I removed the section about reverse-im, however the reason why I had
included it remains...  I will argue that the goal of using a text
editor in a country is mainly editing texts in the language of that
country, so if the tutorial does not mention how to edit texts in the
non-Latin alphabet of the language, few people in that country end up
completing learning the editor and using it in practice.

Note: the majority of the tutorial translations have so far been to
Latin-alphabet languages, and the minority translators might simply
fear to state that a lack for locale-specific instructions in our
tutorials undermines the popularization of Emacs in our communities,
giving the Latin-alphabet majority an unfair edge.

The .de tutorial dedicates two custom screens to German Latin.
Why cannot .uk add half a custom screen on Cyrillic?

> AFAUI from your short description, the reverse-im
> package is useful in very specific jobs, not in general for
> using Emacs in the Ukrainian language environment, so it is not
> appropriate for the tutorial in any case.

Using the C-\ input method toggle instead requires one to change their
system-wide keyboard layout to Latin every time they switch from other
apps such as the Firefox web browser.  Or to reconfigure our systems
to not have a system-wide keyboard layout but to switch our layouts
every time we open a new window.

To a user from a Latin-keyboard country, that might seem a minor
inconvenience.  However, it is a form of institutionalized
discrimination, since no users from any Latin-keyboard countries,
including our Polish and Slovak neighbors, have to do anything
additional every time they switch windows.  For them, Alt-Tab between
other tools and Emacs is seamless; for us it requires further action,
accumulating wasted time and increasing strain.

Reverse-im nicely removes this barrier, so having such a tool from the
beginning would help every new desktop Emacs user with a Cyrillic
keyboard, especially casual users, not the specific job niche.

> As you see in other language-related settings, language-info-alist can
> include what we call "sample text", which is actually the greeting in
> the language from the etc/HELLO file.  Would you like to add a
> Ukrainian greeting, both to the above setting of language-info-alist
> and to etc/HELLO?

Somebody added a one-word first-person greeting translation to
etc/HELLO nineteen years ago.  It is correct so I did not touch that
file.  For the sample text, I added the modern one, popular with the
refugees, diaspora and resistance.  I added a line to etc/NEWS, too.

> Finally, to be able to accept your contribution of this size, we'll
> need you to assign the copyright for your work to the FSF.  If you are
> willing to do that, I will send you the form to fill and the
> instructions to go with it, to start your legal paperwork rolling.

Yes, I am willing to assign copyright to the FSF.  Is that possible
without a reachable physical postal address?

[0001-Add-Ukrainian-tutorial-v2.patch (text/x-diff, attachment)]

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