on 1/22/02 11:58 AM, Christian M. M. Brady at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On 1/22/02 1:38 PM, "Eric Hildum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I would regard both of these issues to be red herrings. Installation size >> can rather easily be handled by an option in the installation asking which >> languages to install. As for scheduling, unless there is something fairly >> unusual going on in development which you cannot address, the translation of >> the software should be able to proceed in parallel with the alpha and beta >> testing (and probably should, given that this will usually reveal a number >> of additional bugs in UI components). In principle, adding a language should >> not delay a schedule at all. > > Eric, > > Except with Japanese, for example, I believe they must be dealing with > something more than just "translation." Would not Japanese require a variety > of very different UI issues than, e.g., Indo-European languages?
The answer to this one is, it depends. Certainly the majority of software that is written contains numerous issues which make supporting non-English languages a problem. This is generally put under the heading of "Internationalization" and covers all of the issues in supporting non-ASCII character sets such as Latin 1-10, as well as the various multi-byte character sets and other items such as input method editors. Macintosh operating systems have provided exceptional support for internationalization. In fact, a properly written application (i.e., one that actually used the APIs according to Apple's recommendations and did not take too many shortcuts in its own code) running on MacOS 7 could handle data in 35 languages simultaneously quite easily. When I had MacOS 7, most of my applications purchased in the US, with the notable exception of Microsoft's, ran well on KanjiTalk 7 (the Japanese version of MacOS 7) and handled a mix of English and Japanese without problems. [By the way, this lack of preparation has caused many companies in the US to lose out in the Japanese market - I have lost count of the Presidents and Vice Presidents of International Marketing who have called me about distribution in Japan, only to discover that they had painted themselves into a corner with US only software (and no, I would not help fund the internationalization effort - I just go down the street to the vendor that did the software right the first time).] Currently, however, the MacBU seems to be very good at creating internationlized software based on how it operates on my mixed language environment. The second half of the issue is localization, actually converting the applications menus, dialogs, help, and icons to the locale. That is usually pretty easy with machine aided translation for standard terminology and Apple had a number of tools to help with this - basically, a clever resource editor that knew how to translate "file," "edit," etc. Some adjustment of button sizes, etc. also needs to be done, but that can take place quite rapidly, and to some extent automatically. This does not need to wait for the application to be finished, but can be done simultaneously with development. > > As for the installation, perhaps what Dan was referring to was the size of > the files, that might well prohibit them from all being on one CD? I really > don't know, but I trust his experience. I don't recall the installation CD being all that large, but even so, the existing Windows Office installation is two CDs (that you need to carry with you at all times as it never seems to manage to completely install the Office application judging from the complaints I hear from others in my office). -- Eric Hildum -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
