Text 18403, 103 rader
Skriven 2005-12-11 15:35:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 18390 av FRANK SCHEIDT (1:123/140)
Ärende: [2/2] [1/2] [1/2] Sociopa
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 >> BTW, in a different vein.  I checked out your web site

 MVDV>> You are from Detroit?

 > No

But you use an ISP in Detroit?

 >> and found it quite interesting.

 MVDV>> Thank you. It still needs a lot of work I think....

 > "Personal" websites created by an individual are *never* finished.

How true. I intend to at least change the picture on the front page from time
to time. The one that is there now was made at the end of october. It was the
last time this year I mowed the lawn.

 >> I was surprised to see it written in Dutch though I certainly
 >> shouldn't have been -- after all that's your language.

 MVDV>> Indeed. It is my language and the language of my friends and family
 MVDV>> and they are my primary audience.

 > Of course ... in a way I was an "intruder" ...

Well, one can hardly call you an "intruder" for visiting a website that is
advertised and open to the public.

 MVDV>> Most websites here are in Dutch.

 > I would expect that ...

Of course... ;-)

 MVDV>> I am still looking for a way to make it bilangual without
 MVDV>> having to duplicate every page. I know how to do that in a
 MVDV>> "normal" programming language such as assembler, Fortran
 MVDV>> or C, but I have not yet found an easy way in HTML.

 > I have software which will translate websites in many languages.
 > I don't know if Dutch is included I'll have to track it down.

That does not fullfil my needs. What I want is a method to make changes without
having to make the same change for each langauge version. In a "real"
programming language one does that by instead of saying display "Good day"" to
say display text #1".

And then add an offset for other languages. So text #1 points to "Good day" and
text #101 points to "Goedendag", text #201 to "Bon jour". Etc, Etc.

The problem is that HTML does not seem to support arrays.

 MVDV>> The website is hand coded BTW.
 >
 >> Even in Dutch, though, most of the meanings could be deciphered.
 >> There are some similarities between Dutch and German which helps.

But Dutch isn't a dialect of German. Appearances can be deceptive. There are
many words that look and sound very alike in German and Ducth but that have
completely different meaning.

 MVDV>> You can read German?

 > I studied German in college since, at that time, most of the
 > chemical literature was in that language.  I also studied
 > literary German.  I learned to read technical German pretty
 > well.  In fact that's how I can spot Dutch -- aside from
 > Dutch-based web sites which I'd expect to be in Dutch --
 > Dutch always appears to me like German but something is
 > seriously wrong ... heh heh heh ...

It looks seriously wrong because the similarities are only superficial. A
Dutchman who has never been confronted with German before will not be able to
communicate with a German who has never been confronted with Dutch. Dutch and
German really are different languages.

For a Dutchman to *properly* learn German is very difficult. The grammar is
completely different. For me it was a nightmare.

 MVDV>> Did you understand what the page about the small trailer was about?

 > Other than realizing "Caravan" probably means "trailer" in
 > Dutch, not really.

Well, yes. A "caravan" is a mobile home with a means of propulsion. It is meant
to be towed. You can see mine in a couple of pictures on my site.

But when I mentioned "the small trailer" I was referring to the little green
trailer on the subbpage "mistlamp op de kar". I was wondering if you had
figuered out what that was all about...

 MVDV>> Or the one about the the SpeedTouch?

 > No, but I intend re-checking the site ...

By all means, be my guest.


Cheers, Michiel

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