Re: Design Questions about static factory classes
On 21-05-2010 19:16, Rhino wrote:
Tom Anderson<twic@urchin.earth.li> wrote in
And those who see the world my way and don't
want localised messages can set it to the canonical standard locale -
en_GB.
Sorry, I though it en_US was the canonical standard ;-) I say that as a
Canadian, just to show that I'm not trying to push my own variant of
English :-)
Give the state of US and UK software industry then I think we can say
it is.
And my guess is that Tom meant US English.
I'm very familiar with resource bundles at a detail; I use them quite
frequently. I'm not quite clear on the "big picture" though. I lack any
significant real-world experience with how "multilingual" systems are
written with Java. For instance, if I were a developer whose native
language was French would I typically install a French-language JVM, read
the Java API in French, and write my system so that it never chose or
changed Locales? Would my classes simply make use of the Resource
Bundles I had written in French and would I leave it up to foreign
purchasers of my system to simply translate the ResourceBundles for their
own languages?
I think it depends a lot of the context you develop software in.
Global or local development?
global => do development in English
local => pick English or local language as you prefer
Are you developing single-customer project-style software or
multi-customer product-style software?
product => internationalize, have English and then add to
supported languages as customers require them (note that
customers can want 3 things A) English version, B) local
version C) Choice of English for local for end users
project => whatever the customer wants
And then we have not even talked about interesting countries
like Belgium and Switzerland with multiple official languages
(Canada is easier because one of the languages is English).
That is not a clear answer, but it is a complex question!
Also, is there much need for systems in which the user can switch
languages on the fly? In other words, let's say I'm working in a system
that uses French language ResourceBundles but am finding that the French
is not to my liking - maybe it's Quebecois instead of Parisian - and I
realize that I will understand better in my second language, English,
which I learned by watching MTV. Would a system typically have the
capability of letting the user invoke a switch to another language via
setLocale()?
See above.
Customer is king.
Or would I install an English-language JVM and run my system
on that?
Hold on, that doesn't quite make sense. I don't recall any language
selection option any time I've installed Java. The language of the JVM
comes from a system property which I can presumably change. Hmm, I wonder
if I should take a minute and switch my language to see what kind of
output I get from core Java classes. Will the message that comes with my
Exception be in the newly-chosen language?.... I should answer this
question for myself with a bit of experimentation....
That problem is not so important. You would not want to display
Java exception text to end-users anyway.
Arne