Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!voa3!ck
From: ck@voa3.UUCP (Chris Kern)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Non-English support
Message-ID: <348@voa3.UUCP>
Date: 18 Dec 89 01:18:47 GMT
References: <130053@gore.com> <7733@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Reply-To: ck@voa3.UUCP (Chris Kern)
Organization: Voice of America, Washington, D.C.
Lines: 24

In article <7733@portia.Stanford.EDU> duggie@jessica.Stanford.EDU (Doug Felt)
writes:
> . . . for a real multilingual machine [,]
>Programs that manipulate text should be prepared to deal with any
>language the user throws at it, no matter what language the program's
>UI is configured in. . . . The user's choice
>of language should be constrained only by the system software on her
>or his machine.
>
>Not that there aren't huge technical problems, of course :-)

There are serious technical issues, but they yield to sufficient determination
and attention to detail.  We currently have a large network (~1000 workstations)
that supports more than 30 languages.  By this time next year, we will have
43 languages, all running on the same hardware and system software "platform"
(Xerox 6085 "Mesa" processor, Xerox ViewPoint software) and all coexisting
within the same network environment.  The system imposes far fewer constraints
on the users than the real world imposes: our Chinese writers can't read Arabic
text, although there is no inherent restriction in the technology that prevents
an Arabic user from sending text to a Chinese user.

-- 
Chris Kern			     Voice of America, Washington, D.C.
...uunet!voa3!ck					+1 202-485-7020