Java Internationalization (Java Series) (Paperback)

~ David Czarnecki (Author), Andy Deitsch (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For any Java programmer or manager creating software for global markets, Java Internationalization is an essential guide to the dos and don'ts of writing software that's usable all around the world. Besides being a general guide to internationalization (and its flip side, localization), this book provides in-depth coverage of support for globalized software on the Java platform.

It makes sense that software should move easily between international markets in today's global economy. Java Internationalization is first and foremost a guide to the issues surrounding writing software for different languages. The first sections examine a truly fascinating sample of the world's character sets and salient features for outputting characters in software. (Besides European languages, the book delves into Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, and Indian character sets, among others.) Of course, you might browse an encyclopedia to look up all of these languages, but the book does a fine job of giving a concise history and description of each system of writing.

Next, there is a thorough description of the techniques and issues that surround creating software in different languages. Screen shots in languages like Arabic (which read right to left) provide a thought-provoking cross-cultural glimpse into software produced internationally. Issues in user interface design come next. (Even if you've designed software for years, chances are that this section will make you rethink the way you create user interfaces for international markets.) For instance, scripts in Thai have no line breaks, so detecting words requires using a dictionary programmatically.

Java's built-in support for locales (best described as geographical and language communities) comes later in the book. The authors show how to format text (and dates) for different markets, again using built-in Java APIs and features (like resource bundles). Properly designed Java software does not need reworking--only new translations of text and images to make it accessible to new languages. Short sections on internationalizing Web sites powered by Java (whether with Servlets or JSP) offer some valuable insight. The book concludes with a road map for the future evolution of Java 3.0 internationalization, plus a really handy listing of all Java APIs that have been designed with international support in mind.

All in all, Java Internationalization does justice to an intriguing area of Java development, one that is sure to be increasingly important as more and more software is extended to new global markets. Suitable for anyone who designs or manages Java software, this admirably concise volume cuts to the chase and is a worthwhile and very timely guide to how to get Java applications to new markets fast. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Internationalization and localization issues with Java
• Survey of the world's writing systems (including Far East, Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, Indic, and Thai scripts, with brief history and character sets described)
• Locale support in Java
• Using resource bundles for text and images
• Formatting messages (APIs and tips for different writing systems)
• Introduction to Unicode and character sets: searching, sorting, and text-boundary detection
• Fonts and text rendering for internationalized applications
• Guidelines and samples of user interfaces for internationalized software
• Input methods (and the Java Input Method Framework)
• Internationalizing Web applications--Servlets and JavaServer Pages (JSP)
• Future enhancements for internationalization in Java 3.0
• Reference for language
• Country codes and Unicode character blocks
• Reference for all internationalized APIs in Java

Review

'As a reader I have walked away from the book feeling that I have met two masters and had the pleasure of being taught by them.' - Dotan Dvir, Java User Group, Israel

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Product Details

• Paperback: 445 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596000197
• ISBN-13: 978-0596000196
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #892,566 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Definitely dated, April 22, 2006

By	Andrew Violette "www.andrewviolette.net" (Hoffman Estates, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is very dated. It covers the basics pretty well: ResourceBundles, DateFormatter, Locales, etc. However, there are several things I find disappointing about this book:

1) All the examples are mostly client side Java. Even the topic of internationalizing websites spends more time on Java applets. While this is Ok, I'm guessing most i18n work in Java these days is done for web applications.

2) There are better libraries/frameworks for dealing with Internationalization than the ones that come with Java: ICU4J and JodaTime to name a few. Since this book was written in 2001, these are not covered.

3) This book does not cover anything related to Java 1.5.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good overview, but wished for more depth, July 7, 2001

By	"cpfeifer" (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This book does a good job of handling localization issues with respect to java applications through the use of resource bundles, and native language UIs.

In my current project we are doing some very intensive XML processing with web content. Web content can be in any number of encodings and character sets, and we've had a decent number of problems when converting content from one encoding to another or from one character set to another.

I was hoping that this book would give very practical hints about how to handle/avoid/rectify character set conversion issues in java. However, the only mention of converting encodings/character sets claims that if you use the proper java.io class with the proper constructor arguments, java will wave it's magic wand and all is right with the world. I can tell you for a fact this isn't true. This was a big disappointment of this book.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "bible" on this topic, December 5, 2001

By	Thomas Paul (Plainview, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are three ways to handle internationalization of your Java applications. First, ignore it and give up all your non-English speaking customers. Second, write customized versions of your programs for each language you wish to support and live with a maintenance nightmare. Or third, take advantage of the many internationalization features built into Java. Fortunately, the internationalization features of Java are fairly simple to use and this book clearly explains how to apply them to your applications. The authors start with a description of the many writing systems in use through the world and discuss the many problems that these writing systems can cause for developers. The book then covers a wide range of topics:

* how to use resource bundles to isolate locale specific data

* formatting dates, numbers, and currency

* handling searching and sorting issues for non-Latin alphabets (Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, etc.) as well as special cases within the Latin alphabet (an "a" with an umlaut is sorted with "a" in German but after "z" in Swedish)

* handling languages such as Arabic and Hebrew that write from right to left

* designing graphical interfaces to handle any writing system

* building internationalized web sites

If you plan on using the internationalization features of Java then you will definitely want to start with this book. The book is written for the intermediate to advanced Java programmer who needs to develop internationalized applications. The authors assume that the reader is unfamiliar with the issues involved with developing internationalized applications. (...)