GLOBALIZATION GLITCHES.When U.S. developers modify software for overseas markets, OneRealm president Sunil Prakash points out, language translation usually represents only about half the cost of localization Customizing software and documentation for a particular country. It includes the translation of menus and messages into the native spoken language as well as changes in the user interface to accommodate different alphabets and culture. See internationalization and l10n. . "The big hidden expense--in time as well as dollars--comes from globalization globalization Process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation changes that have to be made in the source code itself." In theory, he adds, standard development tools can generate source code that properly supports most globalization requirements. "But programmers often don't even think about globalization, so they end up using unsafe function calls that later have to be reengineered and tested for translation." Prakash's company has created a suite of source code analysis tools that detect and help fix such globalization glitches, and he recently described some of the most troublesome issues he's seen: * Minor differences in European alphabets: "Supporting European languages looks like a simple problem compared to Asian languages," says Prakash. "But the biggest market for U.S. software is still Europe, and people there definitely notice when U.S. software doesn't handle a local alphabet perfectly." One common problem: The sequence of text characters in many European languages isn't exactly the same as standard ASCII ASCII or American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a set of codes used to represent letters, numbers, a few symbols, and control characters. Originally designed for teletype operations, it has found wide application in computers. mapping, so database sorting can become badly scrambled. * Text handling routines for Asian languages: Unlike English, where the entire alphabet can be represented with one byte per character, languages like Chinese and Japanese have thousands of characters that require "double-byte" coding. What programmers sometimes overlook, however, is that Asian languages also don't use the same punctuation punctuation [Lat.,=point], the use of special signs in writing to clarify how words are used; the term also refers to the signs themselves. In every language, besides the sounds of the words that are strung together there are other features, such as tone, accent, and conventions (including spaces between words) as European languages. As a result, many common text handling routines--such as cursor movement, word selection, and word counting--may need to be rewritten to work properly. * Text display and storage: Most programmers know that some languages need up to 30% more display space for text in dialog boxes A movable window that is displayed on screen in response to the user selecting a menu option. It provides the current status and available options for a particular feature in the program. , buttons, and forms. What programmers sometimes overlook, says Prakash, is that longer text will also require extra internal buffer space to store text and numerical data Numerical data (or quantitative data) is data measured or identified on a numerical scale. Numerical data can be analysed using statistical methods, and results can be displayed using tables, charts, histograms and graphs. . And programs may also need a great deal more space to display and store other types of data, such as currency expressed in yen or lira LIRA. The name of a foreign coin. In all computations at the custom house, the lira of Sardinia shall be estimated at eighteen cents and six mills. Act of March 22, 1846. The lira of the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, and the lira of Tuscany, at sixteen cents. Act of March 22, 1846. . * Hidden macros: C and C++ programming languages let programmers embed em·bed also im·bed v. em·bed·ded, em·bed·ding, em·beds v.tr. 1. To fix firmly in a surrounding mass: embed a post in concrete; fossils embedded in shale. macro-based processes that may be tricky to find during translation. Worse, says Prakash, the translated output from such macros may use the right words and units, even though the underlying calculation hasn't been globalized. "You can't just look at output and tell if it's right," he points out. Sunil Prakash, president, OneRealm, 4810 Riverbend Rd., Boulder, Colo. 80301; 303/247-1284. E-mail: sprakash@onerealm.com. |
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