RE: Localization without translation? (was: Re: Business Case for i18n?)

Robert,

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De: Robert_vanRaamsdonk@Lionbridge.com
>
> Date and time strings that are an integral part of content (as in:
> "After his birthday, which was on 02/03/2001, he suddenly felt his
> age") should NOT be extracted into external resource files and
> localized separately from that content. If and when the content
> gets localized, the date/time strings will get properly localized
> as well (by the localizer). It is generally bad globalization
> practice to mix locale formatting conventions within the same
> 'logical unit' of content.

I agree with you: date and time that are integral part of content should
remain in the locale of the text, not that of the user.  However, for dates
that are part of text, like in your example, I always favor long date
formats.  Otherwise, in your example, how are localisers supposed to know
whether this date represents February 3, 2001 or March 2, 2001 without
knowing the "locale" of the sentence? ;-)  In this case, you risk having not
only a small ambiguity, but rather "data integrity" in your translated
content...

Guy Lacoursière
Software Globalisation Consultant
Cognos Incorporated

Received on Thursday, 14 June 2001 12:04:35 UTC