Introduction,
Converting,
Limitations,
Future,
Closing
With the Unicode support already in Java 1.1, the amount of
work that you have to do to globalize your application is much
smaller than on other platforms. You can get started right now to
localize your programs, which will get your application a long
way towards world coverage: covering Europe, the Americas, and
(minimally) the Far East. As Java continues to evolve, you soon
will be able to localize to all world markets, building on the
same base of code you have now.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Brian Beck, Ken Whistler, Laura Werner, Kathleen
Wilson, Baldev Soor, Debbie Coutant, Tom McFarland, Lee Collins,
Andy Clark, David Goldsmith and Dave Fritz for their review or
assistance with this paper.
Pulling the JDK 1.1 international classes together on a very
short schedule demanded a lot of hard work by people at Taligent,
including Kathleen Wilson, Helena Shih, Chen-Lieh Huang, and John
Fitzpatrick. People at the IBM NLTC also assisted, most
especially Baldev Soor, but also Siraj Berhan and Stan Winitsky.
And without the support and excellent feedback from people at
JavaSoft, this work would not have been possible, especially from
Brian Beck, but also from Asmus Freytag, David Bowen, Bill
Shannon, Mark Reinhold, Guy Steele, Larry Cable, Graham Hamilton,
and Naoyuki Ishimura.
Resources
- For more detailed information about each of the topics,
you should definitely consult the Java
1.1 International documentation.
- More information on Java
international classes is available from this Web site.
- To see how to write robust Java classes, consult Java
Cookbook:Well-Mannered Objects.
- If you are a beginner at Java but are acquainted with
C++ or C, look at Java
Cookbook: Porting C++ to Java.
- We also supply C/C++ versions of these classes in case
you are interested in licensing them for other
applications besides Java. We also provide online updates
to this paper and a discussion
forum with information on bugs and workarounds.
- I also strongly recommend buying a copy of The Unicode
Standard, Version 2.0 (and I don't even personally get
any of the royalties!). For purchasing information and
general information about the Unicode Consortium look at
the Unicode Web site.
About the Author
Dr. Mark Davis is the director of the Core Technologies
department at Taligent, Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM. Dr. Davis
co-founded the Unicode effort and is the president of the
Unicode Consortium. He is a principal co-author and editor of the
Unicode Standard, Version 1.0, and the new Version 2.0.
Mark has considerable expertise in both management and
software development. His department encompasses Operating System
Services, Text and International. Technically, he specializes in
object-oriented programming and in the architecture and
implementation of international and text software; his experience ranges from
the years he spent programming in Switzerland to his co-authorship of
the Macintosh KanjiTalk and the Macintosh Script Manager (which
later became WorldScript) to creating the Arabic and Hebrew
Macintosh systems, and, most recently, to designing the architecture for the
CommonPoint international frameworks and the bulk of the Java 1.1
international libraries.
Introduction,
Converting,
Limitations,
Future,
Closing