It’s just data

“Just” use Unicode

Sean McGrath: Making it possible to write software that will work in any language in any country, in any culture in the world is an extremely laudable goal. A goal that I wholeheartedly sign up to. We should make sure that the software arts make it possible. It is simultaneously the commercially sensible thing to do and the right thing to do from many human perspectives. A rare alignment of drivers indeed.  At this point, a voice somewhere in the room (is that a pointy haired boss I see out of the corner of my eye?) proclaims the answer to be obvious.

Here’s the non-print version of the article, which is paginated but has working links.

Posted by Brandt Kurowski at

Oops, nevermind: the link in "Do we end up making political statements in our software as a result of the choice of what countries to include and what ones not to include? Probably." is broken in both versions :-(

Anyway, a it’s a nice write-up to be able to refer people to when they want to “just” use Unicode.

Posted by Brandt Kurowski at

Well, sticking your head in the sand is not something that will satisfy either you, or your users, or your pointy-haired boss. Localization is one thing, internationalization (to the extent you can provide it) is another - and number two in today’s IT is an obligation, not an option. If you do the usual “programmer play” by saying “this is more complicated than you think it is” you are doing everybody a huge disservice.

Posted by Julik at

Julik: Don’t Panic!

Yes, I18n is important.  But underestimating the effort involved is what does everybody a huge disservice.

Posted by Sam Ruby at

Unicode

Sean McGrath at ITworld – Unicode : "Let us start by looking at four main variables in the space : language, country, culture and technology. Language. Let us take that one first. How hard can that be? […] Oh dear, when we hit the Middle East we...

Excerpt from Tim's Weblog at

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