Foreign language support and log files

BrokenArrows

Im working on some foreign language support at the moment and im trying to decide whether or not the messages entered into the log files should also be translated or keep the log file 100% english.

Im of the opinion that anyone looking at the log files will be tech support, development or IT professionals and should have a solid grasp of English.
Also i believe that error scenarios should be consistently logged so that troubleshooting is consistent. Rather than having an english speaking person having to google translate a log file he was sent from Spain.

Other people i work with disagree, saying we should make it as easy as possible for the local users/administration to diagnose their own problems in the log files.

Opinions?

L.Jenkins

Will the Company you work offer Support for the Application, and if so, how geographically diverse is the Support team? What I am wondering is, if there is a team, are they Multilingual?

If the Application itself offers localization, I would imagine it would only be right to offer localization in the log files also, to reduce support calls where possible. I'm sure it would be a pain in the arse now, but I'm sure it might save time in the future if it really is necessary.

Manach

I would go also with English. As per the OP's, the language is a lingua franca of the IT world. As well, it avoids issues (thinking from a RHEL PoV) of coding and decoding of texts to incorporate differing text systems (ie Latin and not-Latin based characteristion).

Talisman

Use status codes. The documentation which details the status codes can be localised.

bpmurray

Typically, anything the user sees is translated. It's unusual for end-users to debug using the Logs, so they should be in a language your support folks understand. It also saves a load of money for translations.

L.Jenkins

Talisman wrote: »

Use status codes. The documentation which details the status codes can be localised.

Actually. that would seem easier.

Idleater

Itzy wrote: »

Actually. that would seem easier.

I would do both if actually required by the customer. For "standard debugging"/"issue diagnosis" a concise debug/info/warning message text in the system language perhaps is useful and timely.

awec

It depends on a load of things. What is your app architecture? What logs are you talking about?

Sometimes translating technical sentences / words is not great. Firstly you have to find a translation vendor who is capable of translating in that sort of context (they probably need to understand what the sentences actually mean in English to give you the correct translation), but even when you do find one not everything actually translates well to other languages when using technical terms. Your logs could end up making little sense which is counter intuitive.

Often technical discussion happens in English because it's just easier than trying to do it in any other language even when English isn't their first language.

Baz_

I'm trying to gather my thoughts on the fly here so bare with me.

If your log files contain a lot of text strings, especially long ones, then I think you should localize them. However, if your log files contain a lot of text strings, especially long ones, then I also think you're doing log files wrong.

Log files should be the most brevity-ish of all files because you simply don't know how your application will be used down the road and an out of control log file can cause problems on a server. Log only what is necessary, as little as possible, if someone wants to write a script down the line to extract the log file info in more natural language then that is a trivial task to do, having large and/or many strings in a foreign language will only serve to complicate that task.

Log files != diaries

Baz_

Now, I didn't want to edit my last post because I think it's alright content wise, but I do want to acknowledge that I made an assumption.

I'm assuming you are making a log file for use with your application only, for example like the Apache access log file.

If you are making a log file that will feed into something like systemd's logs or similar then the advice of Veronica Corningstone comes to mind: "when in Rome". Go along with whatever the done thing is in that particular log system, if it's generally all English in other projects then you're golden, and if it's usually localised log entries then that's your answer.