Ask HN: Multilingual READMEs Are Helpful?
Someone told me I should consider translating my repo README into multiple languages. Is it really helpful? How do you maintain single-source-of-truth?
> Is it really helpful?
Have you ever seen a library/program that was written by a Chinese developer, but which had an English readme in addition to the Chinese one? Well, imagine if it only had Chinese.
I disagree with the other comment saying there needs to be an established community in the other language first. There are projects I would never have used or even discovered if they had been written solely in the dev's native tongue. But again, this is assuming you actually speak another language and can write it properly; a shitty AI translation will do more harm than good.
> How do you maintain single-source-of-truth?
The English readme is the source of truth. When you change that, change the TL too. If that's too much work, then just don't bother. An out of date translation is often worse than no translation.
Look into translation management systems for maintaining a source of truth. There's a lot of them out there.
But if there is no such community, a translated README on its own is pointless in my opinion.
But no need to "fake it" with preemptive translations of your own (especially if you're going to do it automatically) if it's going to take time and effort away from other parts of the project. It's more important to have good and thorough documentation in ONE language rather than a barebones readme in ten.