Unicode

[Paul Prescod]

Mike McDonald wrote:
>   But seriously, the problem I have with the current
> localization/globalization effort is that it's only concerned with the
> representation of characters. 

What is the "current localization/globalization effort?" Unicode is a
particular standard that helps with part of the problem. There are other
standards and conventions that apply to other parts.

> There's much more to localization than
> just text. There's things like monetary units and printed
> representations, physical units, idioms (gotta know how to cuss in the
> receipient's language if you're every going to be a world class
> flamer or worse yet, that a word/phrase in your language isn't
> derogatory but is in his! Especially true for symbols.), ... Heck, I
> can't even find out how big the paper is in the printer let alone any
> of the more important things. If you're not going to support all of
> the aspects of localization, then I'd prefer we stick with the
> original unicode, ASCII.

That seems like an odd stance to me for two reasons:

#1. Why not just agree to support all aspects of localization?

#2. Why is no il8n support better than some? I'm sure that non-English
speakers would rather have some than none.

I mean if we aren't going to make an internationalized operating system
until there is reliable machine translation of idioms and swear words
then we will be waiting a LONG TIME.

 Paul Prescod