feedInternationalization Myths
Andrea Vine, a leader of internationalization at Sun, has been writing a series on “Internationalization Myths” – ideas about internationalization that many engineers (and VPs!) at Sun and other companies have but that just aren’t correct. If you think any of the following statements is true, head on over to her blog for an update:
- Internationalization means externalizing the user interface so the software can be translated.
- Translators choose the best phrase in the target language.
- The code is in Java and therefore it’s internationalized.
- My product supports Unicode and therefore it’s internationalized.
- My product uses open source and so internationalization requirements don’t apply.
- ISO-8859-1 is the standard encoding for HTML.
- All company employees speak English, so only English needs to be supported by internal tools.
- Administration interfaces don't need internationalization.
- We’ve never localized this product/module/component/blidget, so it doesn’t need internationalization.
- We added internationalization in the last release, so we’re done.
- If something is wrong, our customers will tell us.
- My product works in Japanese, therefore it’s internationalized.
- Internationalization is implemented after the base product is written by a separate group of engineers.
- Internationalization is only needed in the software development department.
[Updated with the final installments 2005-05-25]