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"Culturally insensitive" wasn't part of the discussion. He listed specific technical and UX issues with their approach. Another commenter in this thread posted

"Culturally insensitive" wasn't part of the discussion. He listed specific technical and UX issues with their approach. Another commenter in this thread posted a link to the github discussion.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
Having re-read the thread, I stand by my "in-a-nutshell" summary of it. I don't think any of his technical arguments hold up. I'm also not sure that he would have convinced the Bootstrap team to have dropped this based on technical arguments if he hadn't seemed so annoyed, and made repeated references to how only people who speak the language should make certain decisions. Some examples: * the bug report is a command: "Stop developing RTL for Bootstrap!" * the bug report ends with an exclamation point! * the bug starts "I'm really annoyed..." * "use cases that only natives can understand" * A second command, bolded: "Remove it!" I personally was inconvenienced by this because I was writing lots of bootstrap based .less, and if twitter and Bootstrap had worked together on an auto-flipping rtl system for Bootstrap then all the RTL users of my code would have got a far better service. Instead only those who use the Bootstrap CSS essentially as-it-comes get a manually RTL'd version from a 3rd party. A tool that can automate that work sounds like a far better deal for the RTL world, even if it would have annoyed this particular person. I note that his argument against automated flipping included the fact that you really need one for farsi, one for arabic, etc. Yet he only manually produces one. Maybe with the right tooling he'd have got to where he wanted to be faster. A link to such a tool: https://github.com/MohammadYounes/rtlcss https://github.com/MohammadYounes/rtlcss (note how it documents various solutions to the 'problems' listed in the original bug report, like changing the font stack when in RTL mode)
- harlanlewis 11y ago
  Agreed that it wasn't raised very diplomatically. That's part personality/choice, part what happens when English isn't someone's first language. Comes with the localization territory. That he produced a coded alternative, regardless of its merits, puts him in good faith in my book. There's no shortage of insufferably squeaky wheels who aren't acquiesced to, and I don't see any ways this one was treated exceptionally. It looks like the maintainers worked to understand the root of his frustration despite his abrasive style. Kudos. The Bootstrap team acknowledging it's a complex issue (rather than the solved problem they thought it to be) and changing their release plan accordingly seems a reasonable way to handle it, and one I'd encourage for maintainers of widely used projects. Finding the right effort/quality balance is tricky. That some of the issues could be relatively trivial to address (font stack) doesn't invalidate the category. In particular, the distinction between RTL and “flipping” does seem to be a meaningful one, and fraught with unexpected issues. Eg, next=right and prev=left as a cultural convention that doesn't directly translate. As you note. Frankly, if tasked with supporting RTL I'd probably start with a repo like the one you linked to, but fully expect it to fall down in a number of ways that could only be identified by a native user. Whether those issues get addressed would be a pretty clear statement on how much those users are valued. PS upvoted for pleasant discussion :)
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    Just to note, flipping and contributions by native RTL speakers are not mutually exclusive. (I'm guessing that the author of the flipping tool I linked to falls into both categories for example). This appeared to be the crux of the original complaint/misunderstanding too. The assumption that the core BS devs would auto-flip and leave it at that. But all but the most basic of rtl-flippers allow for case by case overrides to add the final 5% that the simple rules can't handle. Finding and fixing those requires people with an understanding of RTL and Bootstrap could easily have recruited that effort. It's just that they only have to do the last 1/20th of the work, and even without expert input devs building on top of Bootsrap can automatically get 95% for free on any extensions they build themselves.

"Culturally insensitive" wasn't part of the discussion. He listed specific technical and UX issues with their approach. Another commenter in this thread posted a link to the github discussion.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

Having re-read the thread, I stand by my "in-a-nutshell" summary of it. I don't think any of his technical arguments hold up. I'm also not sure that he would have convinced the Bootstrap team to have dropped this based on technical arguments if he hadn't seemed so annoyed, and made repeated references to how only people who speak the language should make certain decisions. Some examples: * the bug report is a command: "Stop developing RTL for Bootstrap!" * the bug report ends with an exclamation point! * the bug starts "I'm really annoyed..." * "use cases that only natives can understand" * A second command, bolded: "Remove it!" I personally was inconvenienced by this because I was writing lots of bootstrap based .less, and if twitter and Bootstrap had worked together on an auto-flipping rtl system for Bootstrap then all the RTL users of my code would have got a far better service. Instead only those who use the Bootstrap CSS essentially as-it-comes get a manually RTL'd version from a 3rd party. A tool that can automate that work sounds like a far better deal for the RTL world, even if it would have annoyed this particular person. I note that his argument against automated flipping included the fact that you really need one for farsi, one for arabic, etc. Yet he only manually produces one. Maybe with the right tooling he'd have got to where he wanted to be faster. A link to such a tool: https://github.com/MohammadYounes/rtlcss https://github.com/MohammadYounes/rtlcss (note how it documents various solutions to the 'problems' listed in the original bug report, like changing the font stack when in RTL mode)

harlanlewis 11y ago
Agreed that it wasn't raised very diplomatically. That's part personality/choice, part what happens when English isn't someone's first language. Comes with the localization territory. That he produced a coded alternative, regardless of its merits, puts him in good faith in my book. There's no shortage of insufferably squeaky wheels who aren't acquiesced to, and I don't see any ways this one was treated exceptionally. It looks like the maintainers worked to understand the root of his frustration despite his abrasive style. Kudos. The Bootstrap team acknowledging it's a complex issue (rather than the solved problem they thought it to be) and changing their release plan accordingly seems a reasonable way to handle it, and one I'd encourage for maintainers of widely used projects. Finding the right effort/quality balance is tricky. That some of the issues could be relatively trivial to address (font stack) doesn't invalidate the category. In particular, the distinction between RTL and “flipping” does seem to be a meaningful one, and fraught with unexpected issues. Eg, next=right and prev=left as a cultural convention that doesn't directly translate. As you note. Frankly, if tasked with supporting RTL I'd probably start with a repo like the one you linked to, but fully expect it to fall down in a number of ways that could only be identified by a native user. Whether those issues get addressed would be a pretty clear statement on how much those users are valued. PS upvoted for pleasant discussion :)
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  Just to note, flipping and contributions by native RTL speakers are not mutually exclusive. (I'm guessing that the author of the flipping tool I linked to falls into both categories for example). This appeared to be the crux of the original complaint/misunderstanding too. The assumption that the core BS devs would auto-flip and leave it at that. But all but the most basic of rtl-flippers allow for case by case overrides to add the final 5% that the simple rules can't handle. Finding and fixing those requires people with an understanding of RTL and Bootstrap could easily have recruited that effort. It's just that they only have to do the last 1/20th of the work, and even without expert input devs building on top of Bootsrap can automatically get 95% for free on any extensions they build themselves.