Re: tlug: Introduction; Looking for Help on i18n

[Kai Wetzel <k.wetzel@example.com>]

A.Tomita,Jr. wrote:
[...]
> Please forgive my ignorance, but someone could post a little
> summary on what is the "i18n issue" ?

Oops, usually I put it down when I first say "i18n",
i18n stands for "internationalization", 'i' + 18
characters + 'n'.  If a program is internaionalized,
it is possible to localize it, adapt it to a certain
language/regional setting, such as German/Germany,
Japanese, etc.

The GUI library should make it easier to write such
applications by providing common functionality in an
easy way, so not each application has to do everything
on it's own.  Certain i18n features are in the X11
window system, others are in the C++ language.

While I can't give a comprehensive list of what issues
are involved in the process, here are some:

- input and output of multi-byte characters
- output of strings in respect to writing direction,
  and some other special features of some writing systems.
- handling date and time formats
- handling different calendars (e.g. some countries use
  a lunar calendar)
- finding word boundaries in text

and there are some other things I can't think about right away.

Best regards,
kai

Next TLUG meeting is Saturday Dec. 13, 1997  (possibly Nov. 13?)
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