What are the actual differences between I18n / L10n / G11n and, in particular, what do they mean for development?

Question

Possible duplicate:
Localization and internationalization, what is the difference?

I18n / L10n / G11n are all equal to me localizations, but people continue to make differences between them, especially in the field of corporate and marketing, but I do not understand how these 3 tasks, from the point of view of the programmer, are not the same. Are there any special requirements to each of them? What honest programmer explains to programmers these terms that are not related to global markets, in other words, what are the significant differences in these three terms when they are translated into software development (coding)?

thank!

Answer 1

Here's a W3C article: Localization versus Internationalization

The short answer from them is as follows:

Localization refers to the adaptation of a product, application or document with content that matches the language, cultural and other requirements of a particular target market (“locale”).

Internationalization is the design and development of a product, the application or content of a document, which makes it easy to localize target audiences that vary by culture, region or language.

So, it seems that internationalization makes the product available for localization in a particular market. According to the W3C, globalization is another term for internationalization.

Personally, I use them mostly interchangeably, but I check the article for more specificity of what each of them entails.

Answer 2

I18n - Internationalization. Providing some kind of structure that makes it easy to change lines, graphics, sounds and other resources and usually process various exchange agreements.

L10n - Localization - the process of creating a sequence of lines, graphics, sounds, etc., so that you can focus on a specific nationality, language or region.

G11n - Globalization - Performing internationalization and localization steps :)

There are many methods and frameworks that support the "string" parts of these processes, and they usually use unicode. Other parts are usually handled by creating resource files with a bunch of graphics and sounds in them. Depending on the structure used, strings may also be stored here. I find Qt has an excellent string handling system for I18n.

Answer 3

Just think about it in terms of McDonald (naked with me).

McDonald is international because it can be localized. You cannot easily localize, say, an American flag store unless you have expanded your company to make all country flags.

McDonald is localized because when you go to McDonald in Japan, there is a completely different food here than in the USA, say, in the USA. It is also all written in Japanese. This means that they have customized their product to the language and culture of Japan.

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For me, localization is when you make specific products for different cultures. For example: www.google.com and www.google.co.nz . They are both Google. One for the United States (or common) and one for New Zealand. They are both in English ... but they are localized for the culture of their respective audience.

It makes sense? .

Answer 4

I do not know about the "G", but for me:

• I18n means it can be done
• L10n means it was done

Answer 5

i18n is basically a software development job; you need to deal with the code. The simplest concept is to move the hard code of the String from the source code to reduce the interaction between the translation of the string visible to the user and moving them back as resource files or database values ​​or something, depending on your i18n sample. In i18n, you deal with logic, user interface, databases, scripts from left to right, etc., to get a code base that is pretty orthogonal to the specifics of the locale (language / countries). You may have strategies to combat the business logic specific to the country (i.e. Taxes). You are probably handling the formatting of simple elements such as date / time, currency, etc., and possibly complex (addresses, imperial calendar), which may require some design in terms of database, logic, user interface, etc. .d. Depending on your target locales.

L10n is due to appear later and is not the work of software engineers. For the most part, this is the "localization" of companies, with translators who do this part of the work.

i18n and L10n are essential components of the G11n strategy. Planning, QA, etc. Both sides must take into account, since there are issues of integration from one world to another.

Hope this helps.

Answer 6

While I am not going to try to answer your question about the impact on coding, due to the lack of experience in this arena, I think you will find the next Wikipedia article, which is used to distinguish between the three terms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I18n

Answer 7

I have an internationalized product. The translation was not completed, but the lines are all externalized, so if we had a desire to send a product localized for a specific country, we could translate the files, test the product and send it for use initially in that country.

Currently, a fully internationalized product - everything is in English, but coding is done. If someone tried to verify a code that was not correct, the reviewer could correctly reject it on the grounds that it is not internationalized and would make the product unable to completely localize.

But since the test was not completed, it really is not completely internationalized ...

Answer 8

In accordance with my practical experience:

I18N: Suppose your OS is English (United States). You can simply change the OS language to Japanese / Chinese and you can install the application in Japanese / Chinese support.

L10N: your OS must be in the same locale as application.eg on the Japanese OS, you can install an application that supports Japanese. All of them will be in one lakel.

G11N: Its name translation provided by IBM / Sun Microsystem.It covers both the I18N and L10N depending on the type of all settings.

Correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks Vikas