I mean I take your point but again you are just describing the technical details of localization. The little fiddly bits that can be automated and neatly dealt with by a computer or person with an accountant’s mindset for making sure little things plug neatly and cleanly into other little things. Any concept of “localization” that does not include careful consideration of the vast territory of nuance that surrounds the much easier technical details seems useless to me in the context of solving any actual real world problem.
When it comes to the actual hard parts about localization I am fairly certain almost every computer professional I have ever met or talked to does not understand them. The more successful a computer person is in their career the more they tend to think everything in the world functions like computers and thus they don’t need to try to understand alternate systems or phenomena that don’t adhere to their narrow tool belt of critical thinking strategies that can’t handle even a homeopathic amount of ambiguity or subjective nuance.
These types of people spend all day thinking in programs and then go home and play factorio and they think they are the smartest people in the entire universe, and they are idiots. Very very skilled idiots.
On that–and as a highly skilled idiot myself–we fully agree!
The adage “social problems don’t have purely technological solutions” is something I’ve known for years yet must continuously remind myself of and reintegrate it for new issues.
It’s a shame the old vision of computer specialists integrated into empowered teams building bespoke solutions never really came to pass. Not enough profit in that model, when mass market slop is so lucrative.
I mean I take your point but again you are just describing the technical details of localization. The little fiddly bits that can be automated and neatly dealt with by a computer or person with an accountant’s mindset for making sure little things plug neatly and cleanly into other little things. Any concept of “localization” that does not include careful consideration of the vast territory of nuance that surrounds the much easier technical details seems useless to me in the context of solving any actual real world problem.
When it comes to the actual hard parts about localization I am fairly certain almost every computer professional I have ever met or talked to does not understand them. The more successful a computer person is in their career the more they tend to think everything in the world functions like computers and thus they don’t need to try to understand alternate systems or phenomena that don’t adhere to their narrow tool belt of critical thinking strategies that can’t handle even a homeopathic amount of ambiguity or subjective nuance.
These types of people spend all day thinking in programs and then go home and play factorio and they think they are the smartest people in the entire universe, and they are idiots. Very very skilled idiots.
On that–and as a highly skilled idiot myself–we fully agree!
The adage “social problems don’t have purely technological solutions” is something I’ve known for years yet must continuously remind myself of and reintegrate it for new issues.
It’s a shame the old vision of computer specialists integrated into empowered teams building bespoke solutions never really came to pass. Not enough profit in that model, when mass market slop is so lucrative.