Java Enterprise Best Practices

Chapter 8. Enterprise Internationalization

David Czarnecki and Andy Deitsch

The proliferation of the Internet and the World Wide Web has made access to global markets (especially for software products) easier today than ever before. For companies to capture market share in non-English-speaking countries, it is critical that their software products support languages other than English. Unfortunately, software developers who are not aware of software internationalization issues can build cultural biases into the products they develop. These built-in cultural biases will have a negative impact on the company’s ability to localize the software product for foreign markets. Having an understanding of the issues associated with various cultures, languages, and writing systems will minimize or eliminate cultural bias and make the process of delivering localized software to global markets a realizable dream.

Software internationalization is the term used to define the architecture and design of software for which only one set of source and binary code is produced to support all the markets in which the software will be sold. Internationalized applications require planning, forethought, and proper design. Trying to retrofit an application to be internationalization-ready requires much more time and money than designing the application correctly in the first place. Retrofitted applications also usually end up being far more difficult to maintain.

Enterprise applications add yet another layer ...