From: "Peter C. Verhage" <usenet2@...>
Date: 2004-04-27T05:59:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Approaches to localization?

Phil Tomson wrote:
> This is an interesting idea, however, I can't assume that the customer 
> will have people who know Ruby in the future when I'm gone.  Currently, 
> I'm the only one in the group who does Ruby and I'm developing this 
> particular app on my own.  While I am supposed to do some training to 
> bring others up to speed, it may not come  before the budget axe falls 
> (something rumored to be hanging over our heads).  So if they've got 
> this XML file that can be edited that's probably a big advantage over 
> having them go through the Ruby code.  Also, with the XML file approach 
> all of these strings are in one location and they're easy to find when it 
> comes time for them to edit.

The sample I gave you is no ruby code. It's just a plain text file. It's 
easy to parse with Ruby, Java has native support for it and it's 
actually easy to parse with any kind of language. They can edit the file 
using notepad, vi or whatever editor they want. If they've seen a single 
example I think they will understand directly what they need to do.

An article about Java internationalization can be found here:
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Intl/ResourceBundles/, 
especially the part about the PropertyResourceBundle should interest you.

Regards,

Peter