Marketing wizardry & handling of far-east languages.

[Richard Goerwitz]

In article <11171 at smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn at brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
 
>It also appears to make us forget how to use English.

Come now, is this really a substantive comment, Doug?

>>The fundamental misconception is, of course, that localization is com-
>>patible with internationalization.
>
>No, the fundamental problem is that you don't know what they
>mean by "localization".  It's a technical term; locales provide
>a flexible mans of supporting multiple cultural interfaces on
>the same system.  The original technique was devised by X3J11
>in conjunction with international working groups that were
>concerned with such issues, generally summarized as
>"internationalization".  I receive many of their mailings
>regularly.  I think they have the matter well under control.

Very interesting.  The problem I have found (and, regardless of ter-
minology, it seems real enough to me) is that no one has come up
with a standard interface that:

  1) offers flexible creating and use of multiple fonts in the
     same window
  2) offers proportional spacing and/or overstrike, or some other
     ready means of getting languages like Arabic on the screen
  3) offers access to various wordwrap methods for (1) and (2)

If such a system exists, I would truly like to know about it.  Short
of this, it would be hard to call something "international."  My
impression is that the responder quoted above was so annoyed at my
ignorance about the term "localization" that he did not address the
substantive questions raised.  I, for one, would like to know more
than simply that they "have the matter well under control."

                                       -Richard L. Goerwitz
                                       goer at sophist.uchicago.edu
                                       rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer