Go: website: add support for languages other than English

[ericlagergren]

Right now the docs are only in English. There's some support for languages other than English, but the wiki page is merely a footnote.

Other projects—like React—are attempting this as well. Not only does it give newcomers a (somewhat) easy way to contribute to Go, it also makes Go a more welcoming and inclusive place for non-English speakers. Obviously the English version would remain the "master" version of the docs.

Ideally, golang.org would respect the Accept-Language header or support some sort of en/, fr/, etc. URL path option.

I'm not sure how much of a proposal this needs to be, but it's something I'm willing to put further thought into if needed. (It's not a language change or anything, so I didn't write out a full proposal.)

Projects with their docs and/or websites in multiple languages:

• React
• Rust
• Python
• Java (sorta)
• PHP
• JavaScript (via MDN)
• Perl (third party)
• Ruby
• Babel
• LaTeX
• Scala (like how Go currently does it, but more uniform)
• ...

[cznic]

With full respect to everyone's choice of which language to use and when, in my experience using any other language than English to study programming/CS and/or learn from the documentation makes that programmer less capable on the long run - and vice versa. (I'm not a native English speaker.)

[ericlagergren]

@cznic that's a good point. As a native English speaker I don't have much experience learning to program in a non-native language. Personally, I've noticed that it can be more difficult to "concretely" learn things in a non-native language. But I've also had the luxury of having most everything I needed in my native language.

That's neither here nor there, though. I don't really believe it's Go's job to require its users to adhere to what we (general "we") believe to be best practices that are unrelated to the language itself.

[dominikh]

How will the Go team review contributions in other languages? And who guarantees that they're kept in sync with changes/additions to the standard library?

[ericlagergren]

@dominikh

How will the Go team review contributions in other languages?

In this case, unless the Go team member speaks that language, they'll have to sanity check it (Google translate, etc.) Ideally, you'd have a community member double-check the additions.

And who guarantees that they're kept in sync with changes/additions to the standard library?

IMO the best way to start would be to start on the more static parts: golang.org/, golang.org/doc/, golang.org/doc/contribute.html, etc. If that's too difficult to keep in sync or the whole thing flounders, it can be scrapped.

Alternatively (or additionally), a simple disclaimer can be put at the top of translated pages. (Like I mentioned before, English is the 'master' version.)

As an example of what the React project is doing: https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/8063

[ianlancetaylor]

CC @spf13