Except there is one tiny issue: only about 29 percent of the
total Internet population actually speaks English.1 The rest speak Chinese, Japanese,
Spanish, German, French, or one of several dozen other languages. Therefore, if you??™re
interested in truly reaching a global audience, you need to think about creating a Web
site conforming to not only the visitor??™s native language, but also standards (most
prevalently, currency, dates, numbers, and times).
But creating software capable of being used by the global community is hard, and
not only for the obvious reason that one has to have the resources available to translate
the Web site text. One also has to think about integrating the language and standards
modifications into the existing application in a manner that precludes insanity. This
chapter will help you eliminate this second challenge.
?– Note One of PHP 6??™s key features is native support for Unicode (http://www.unicode.org/), a
standard that greatly reduces the overhead involved in creating applications and Web sites intended to
be used on multiple platforms and to support multiple languages. While neither Unicode nor PHP??™s
implementation is discussed in this book, be sure to learn more about the topic if globally accessible
applications are a crucial part of your project.
1. Internet World Stats: http://www.internetworldstats.com/
592 CHAPTER 23 ?– B U ILDING WE B SITES FOR THE WORLD
Supporting native languages and standards is a two-step process, requiring the
developer to internationalize and localize the Web site.
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