O’Reilly news

Parlez-Vous Java? Write Once, Run Anywhere (In the World)

March 16, 2001

Sebastopol, CA--On the Internet, there are almost no barriers against international commerce--except language. Unfortunately, most software is still written in English. The most recent release in O'Reilly's Java series, Java Internationalization (Deitsch & Czarnecki (US) $39.95), shows how to write software that is truly multi-lingual, using Java's very sophisticated internationalization facilities.

"Many of the assumptions programmers make are not acceptable when developing global applications," says coauthor Andrew Deitsch. "They can easily make simple assumptions, for example that punctuation marks are the same or that text is written from left to right. Ignorance of cultural and linguistic differences can cause major problems for companies." As the authors explain, this is why simple translation of software applications will not do the job for international markets.

English-only software is already obsolete. Java Internationalization, written by multi-lingual authors with extensive backgrounds in ecommerce and internationalized software apps, brings Java developers up to speed on the new generation of software development: writing software that is no longer limited by language boundaries.

"The designers of Java realized early on that support for global software development would be an important language feature," says Deitsch, "Developing internationalized software, however, requires a lot more than simply encoding characters in Unicode. You need to be aware of proper usage patterns and common pitfalls to truly make your software internationalized."

Unicode (a standard system for the interchange, processing, and display of written text in 24 different languages) is thoroughly integrated at just about every level of Java. In addition to covering methods for writing software that will "pass for native," this practical new book explores Java Unicode and provides concrete examples for using its features to create multilingual user interfaces, to correctly format currency, dates and times, and to ensure font support for different languages.

Java Internationalization brings Java developers up to speed on the new generation of software development: writing software that is no longer limited by language and cultural boundaries.

Additional Resources:

Java Internationalization
By Andy Deitsch & David Czarnecki
March 2001
ISBN 0-596-00019-7, 350 pages, $39.95 US
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938

About O’Reilly

O’Reilly, the premier learning platform for technology professionals, offers the industry’s most extensive catalog of high-quality technical and professional skills development courses. From AI, programming, and cloud technologies to essential business skills such as leadership training and critical thinking, O’Reilly delivers highly trusted content from its network of renowned experts that meets a diverse array of learning needs, with over 5,000 role-based on-demand courses, nearly 200 live events each month, access to interactive sandboxes and labs, and more. For more information, visit www.oreilly.com.

Email a link to this press release