I18n Questions

Which is the suggested workflow to make an application i18n aware and how can Globalyzer help us with the following?

1. Analysis 2. Scoping 3. Build, verify 4. QA

We assume you’re referring here to a legacy code base. Your order is correct, and Globlayzer will help with metrics and getting the work done, though you can also integrate ongoing status reporting into your internationalization process.

What is Unicode and why should it be used?

Unicode is a character set that encompasses (most) all the world’s language characters. There are various encoding formats for Unicode: UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32. Using Unicode enables your software to support worldwide character sets with one code base.

How would string comparisons be non-internationalizable?

Because they perform binary collation rather than linguistic collation. Binary collation means that they sort characters based on their encoding values. For example the ASCII a-z would sort before à. Whereas in a linguistic sort, the à would sort after a.