Help with a translation about computers

Question

I'm having a little difficulty translating a phrase in the following paragraph that doesn't make much sense translated literally. It's found on this page: Where I found it.

La verdad, es difícil atribuir a una sola persona, la invención de la computadora. Para los expertos, son varias las personas que aportaron conocimientos y creaciones, como para que se desarrollara este invento. Pero si se tiene que señalar a una sola persona, como quien inventó la computadora, es a John Vincent Atanassoff.

The use of "como para que" is a tad confusing, Another thing that confuses me is the very free use of commas. Is such use of commas usual for Spanish writing? Thanks for help ahead of time!

Answer 1

I think the use of "como para que" is really an extension of the use "para que" . . . in this case, "como" seems to be one of those strange redundancies in Spanish grammar that native English speakers (like me) have a lot of trouble coping with during a translation.

I would read this as . . ."For the (maybe "según" is a better word choice here?) experts there are various people that contributed knowledge and creations so that (como para que) this invention would develop."

Just for the record, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that this overuse of commas is not indicative of good Spanish (or English) grammar. There are differences between the two, but in this case it just appears to be poorly constructed sentences. Additionally, I am not really crazy about some of the the word choices either. For example, why use the word "creaciones" . . . when I think the word "componentes" is a much better word to use that makes the meaning very clear?

I hope this was at least a little a helpful . . .

thank you, you've been more than helpful! - Himself12794, Feb 29, 2012

I disagree about the comma usage. As a marketing translator, I often see written Spanish that uses a lot of commas. It can make translating be difficult since I try to avoid run-ons! - missy8888, Mar 2, 2012