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From: barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: Standards Update, Recent Standards Activities
Message-ID: <762@longway.TIC.COM>
Date: 1 Jul 90 06:38:34 GMT
References: <387@usenix.ORG>
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From:  barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)

In article <387@usenix.ORG> From: <jsh@usenix.org>
>  The problem being addressed is how to move all printable
>strings out of our programs and into external ``message'' files so
>that we can change program output from, say, English to German by
>changing an environmental variable.

Both examples you supplied were simply ways to look up strings to output in
a database keyed on locale and an internal program string; they differ only
in minor ways.  Does either proposal address any of the *hard* issues?  For
instance, different languages have different pluralization rules; how do
you internationalize a program that automatically pluralizes when necessary
(I hate programs that say things like "1 files deleted")?  Or what about
differing word order; how would you internationalize

	printf("the %s %s", adjective, noun);

so that it would look right in a language where adjectives follow nouns?
--
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar

Volume-Number: Volume 20, Number 77