Steve Langasek wrote: > On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 at 09:26:42AM +0700, Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim wrote: >> I still have no clue on why "country/province" information is >> technically needed. Sure, "language" is needed, and so does "time zone", >> "keyboard", etc. But for what is "country"? > > It's used for: > > - collation order of text Not country-related; this is strictly language/dialect related.
> - currency symbols and formatting This one is probably the closest to being actually country-based, though even there it isn't always, as a few countries have multiple simultaneous currencies. > - numeric formatting characteristics (thousands separator, decimal point) Again, varies within some countries. And so on. > - characteristics of time representation (24/12h, : vs ., ...) Again, not really purely country-based. Here in the US, it's 24-hour if you're in the military, 12-hour if you're not,... > - paper size (in theory) Heh. This definitely varies at a below-country level! > any or all of which can vary per country, even among countries which use > the same language. Even within *one* country. :-P > It also can be used to support separate regional translations where > dialects are sufficiently different to warrant it, Unless the dialects are in the same country. :-P > and can also > distinguish between locales which use different character sets to > represent the same language. Unless they're in the same country. :-P > Oh, and it's also a good heuristic for guessing the user's timezone, Unless the country has multiple time zones, in which case it just restricts it to a smaller list. :-P > keyboard, Well, sort of; *collection* of keyboards to choose from is more like it. And that's more language-based anyway.... > *and* mirror of choice, Likely to be wrong for large countries, and likely to be absent for small countries. :-P > making it much more likely that we can > present the correct default option to the user for each of these > selections. OK, I guess what I'm saying is that country-based defaults are *very* rough and not really that good. I suppose they're better than nothing, though. :-) -- Make sure your vote will count. http://www.verifiedvoting.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
