For a different perspective on software architecture, Christopher Alexander??™s
classic trilogy (The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, and The Oregon
Experiment) is worth a read. The books describe how architecture influences and is
influenced by life. Alexander??™s philosophies on architecture were the inspiration for
the modern software design patterns movement.
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Chapter 8 CHAPTER 8
i18n and L10n 8
Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt,
wei?? nichts von seiner eigenen.
(He who ignores foreign languages
knows nothing of his own.)
??”Goethe
As the reach of the Web expands, developers find that their web applications must
be customized to match the needs of new audiences of different cultures.
Internationalization is the process of adapting software so that it may be used across
many various cultures and locales. Localization is the process of actually modifying
the product and creating a version customized for a particular language, country, or
locale.
The difference between internationalization and localization can be fuzzy, and it can
change from situation to situation. As a simplistic example, consider a social networking
site. At a minimum, internationalization would involve adapting the application
to accept and display data in a wide variety of character sets (say, by using
UTF-8 for all input, output, and storage). Localization would at least involve translation
of user interface elements to several languages, and possibly much more.
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