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Normal? With languages? Normal is an ATM that doesn't know to look on my card or at my account data for my language. At my own bank. Ok, so maybe prompt for

by Hoff 16y ago

Normal? With languages? Normal is an ATM that doesn't know to look on my card or at my account data for my language. At my own bank. Ok, so maybe prompt for that and set that once. But then prompting me every single time I use that same card in the bank's own ATMs? Duh. Normal is an IP-based language selection that fails for non-native speakers, or for regions where the populations where there are multiple languages. Normal is a language chooser box implemented with the available languages listed in English. Normal is US ASCII encodings and sort orders, when you're not running with English selected. Normal is not being able to select your default language and spellings and related grammar checks on the fly, and on a per-document basis. Normal is English text labels within images and icons. More than a few of these systems will barf in creative ways when you toss UTF-8 at them, too. Normal is a scheme a programmer or IT specialist can use to alter a mass deployment implemented as the main user interface, rather than as a design suitable for the end-user first and IT second. Yes, we can do a better normal, too.

jacquesm 16y ago
The complexities in designing fully language agnostic software are non-trivial and easily underestimated. I once had an offer from a large hardware manufacturer to bundle some software with a hardware device they made, the deal fell through when I realized the cost of making the software work in all the languages they supported and providing tech support in all those languages would have to be born by us. There simply was no way we could afford it. Another problem is that there is no really good guide (there certainly wasn't at the time, but even today this is sorely lacking) on how to make your software truly multi-lingual in a way that leaves absolutely no loose ends. Even frameworks that are supposedly multi-lingual typically have lots of shortcomings and only work well in the language of the original developers, and maybe one or two others. Try throwing right-to-left fonts at them, the installer is available in only one language (even if the software is multi-lingual), fonts will be missing and so on.

by Hoff 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

The complexities in designing fully language agnostic software are non-trivial and easily underestimated. I once had an offer from a large hardware manufacturer to bundle some software with a hardware device they made, the deal fell through when I realized the cost of making the software work in all the languages they supported and providing tech support in all those languages would have to be born by us. There simply was no way we could afford it. Another problem is that there is no really good guide (there certainly wasn't at the time, but even today this is sorely lacking) on how to make your software truly multi-lingual in a way that leaves absolutely no loose ends. Even frameworks that are supposedly multi-lingual typically have lots of shortcomings and only work well in the language of the original developers, and maybe one or two others. Try throwing right-to-left fonts at them, the installer is available in only one language (even if the software is multi-lingual), fonts will be missing and so on.