Re: Attention: European C/C++/C#/Java Programmers-Call for Input

On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:28:09 -0600, "Paul K. McKneely"
<pkmckneely@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My fault for phrasing my original question badly. I should
never have mentioned the words "character set". Forget that
there is an internal encoding method that is used in the compiler
tools for this new language whose codes will never be seen by its users.
The programming lanugage supports only a subset of the complete
UNICODE character set regarding the Western European
alphabetics.

There's probably more to be gained in the long term by sticking
with a current standard of encoding. I say this because the real
internationalisation issues are not in the character set, but in
translation and display. Western Europe is the least of your
problems, without even considering right-to-left display.

When you internationalise an application, even an embedded one,
a standard process is to send your text to be translated from
English (7 bit ASCII plus a few specials) to your dealer, who
translates the messages into his/her language and sends it back
to you.

Because you're writing a program for humans to use, you include
things like dates, times, and currency. These all vary in format
across the world. In addition, parameter order will vary in different
spoken languages.

On a PC consider what happens when a program written in English
by South Africans (three languages in daily use in the office),
is run in Hong Kong on a PC with a Chinese operating system but
for use by a Russian engineer who wants his package to display
Cyrillic (several encodings available). This scenario has been
seen in the wild. One customer of ours supports 17 different
spoken languages in multiple encodings.

For most embedded systems it's not as extreme as that, especially
as there's usually no operating system. Despite this, having to
support several languages, even within the same country, is
normal. We still have to support varying display orders in
embedded systems.

Stephen


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