Re: French Terms -- MIDRANGE-L

I opened this letter out of curiosity, nothing more, but found two concepts
within the thread that I would like to comment on.  Neither is concerned
with translation, per se, but they're here, nonetheless.

First - the phrase ". . . a company with IBM's resources . . . ."  My wife
and kids commonly employ the concept that big companies must be able to
afford things more easily than small.  Well, I'm a creature of the 90's,
having had a 21 year career with Westinghouse before the corporation
imploded.  No, "White Westinghouse" is NOT THE Westinghouse - it is White
Industries, who bought the Mansfield, Ohio appliance division in 1974 and
apparently got the right to call the appliances "Westinghouse" in
perpetuity.  When I started with the company in 1973, it was with a 10 man
(yeah, we had gender back then  ;)  ) group and I had to wait a couple of
months before the boss could get approval to buy a $150 desk.  If you
subscribe to the idea that small companies are often better managed by
owners who have a stake in results, then small companies may have more bucks
to spend on what's important, since they're not wasting megabucks in
political turf wars.  Let's not get into arguments about econonmy of scale
and purchasing power.  Once upon a time Westinghouse was big enough that
when I went to Intel school in 1973 _I_ was the guy from the _big_ outfit.

Rant - rant ... anyway, the point is, IBM does NOT necessarily have the
resources you're referring to, because in part, I suspect, their pension
plan (not the new one, perhaps), gives a lot more to the employees than the
plan of outfits like Intel, Compaq or Dell and IBM isn't a "direct marketer."  

Hey, David.  If you're listening, feel free to relabel this thread, or whatever.

> >> Are you saying that a company with IBM's resources was using "SEs
working in
> >> their spare time" to do translations??

So I agree with Mr. Paris on the following.  IBM needs to save money, too.
>
>That is my understanding - yes.  But IBM's level of resource is not really
>relevant.  They did it because it produced the best translations that money
>could buy.  They switched to professional translation services to _save_ money!

Concerning IBM midrange tech manuals and the people who write them as
mentioned below by Mr. Paris - I've been reading them as a full time
midranger since 1980, not counting the S/360 COBOL and system error texts
back in 1968.  I have _always_ thought the midrange manuals were models of
readability and style compared to IBM's "mainframe" stuff or any of the
early PC manuals.  So, I think that the great technical writers at IBM _are_
(or at least, _were_) in the midrange group.  If anyone is watching, the
preceding sentence is an embedded compliment to a group of people at IBM.
I've earned my living for a long time based on what I read in those manuals.
On the other hand, the two big texts on SQL, were apparently written by some
database "purists".  I find that the indexing sucks (technical term) in them
and the explanations follow some sort of Backus-Naur form of cryptic
definitions.
>
>I suspect that SEs were used part-time because anyone with the technical
>knowledge to do the job would be bored to death doing it full time.  A similar
>situation applies to regular manuals.  IBM has some great technical
writers, but
>they are (for the most part) not AS/400 literate.  People with the AS/400
skills
>would not be prepared to write manuals full time.

Just my 2 cents.  My buddy the retired English teacher says "Non gustibus
disputandum est."  Well, OK, that's Latin, but he still says it.  I believe
it means "There is no arguing matters of taste."

+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---