hi, i18n - internationalization and l10n - localization are two sides of the same coin. Both are related to each other, yet different.
i18n means, for a software application, to prepare the application to be translated into any language. So to a large extent i18n focuses on making an application translatable - this is done by marking the strings to be translated and providing a .po file for translators. To a certain extent it also requires marking things like dates, currency and the like for translation. l10n focuses on providing resources for *all* applications to be used in a particular country/region. This is very often neglected, and in India a lot work is needed to be done on this. For example for each state in India, we need a database of districts, towns, villages. The idea is click on Tamilnadu and all districts in Tamilnadu show up - click on a district and all towns/cities show up. Another one is a resource to show pincodes - click on chennai and 600 0xx turns up. Localities/suburbs of towns are also important. If this data, in suitable xml format is made available - under some opensource licenses, the work of programmers gets much easier. State flags, state bird, state animal, important holidays - public and religious. Religions, sects and subsects. For example Christians in england would have divisions like anglican, lutheran, roman catholic - but in India we have CSI, CNI, syrian, jacobite etc. Same for Hindus and Muslims. All these resources for localization need to be set up - and translated too. No doubt it is not very challenging work, but it needs to be done - maybe as student projects? -- regards KG http://lawgon.livejournal.com _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe <password> <address>" in the subject or body of the message. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
