The flaws of thinking "Just use Unicode"

Re:The flaws of thinking "Just use Unicode" by awolf on Monday November 16, 2009 @11:52AM (#944703)

>>What would our software need to do to operate in, say, Europe? Well, apart from selecting a subset of the myriad of languages (France alone has 30+ )...

Who said that you need to support every language in a region to have your software operate there? If someone living in France speaks an obscure dialect then its a pretty safe bet they ALSO speak French. And if they only speak a single obscure language they probably aren't going to be your customer anyway.

If you hit the top 15-20 most used languages in the world then you'll be fine.

Just use unicode.

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Re:The flaws of thinking "Just use Unicode" by xiaoma on Monday November 16, 2009 @12:55PM (#944868)

I really agree with just supporting the top 15-20 most used languages, but the problem with "just" using unicode is that #1 on that list of languages isn't well served by some unicode formats.

In fact, the PRC requires that all language-related products introduced into the Chinese marketplace must be able to function in GB 18030.

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Re:The flaws of thinking "Just use Unicode" by xtho on Monday November 16, 2009 @01:28PM (#944949)

Most people in France (or Europe) learn English in school, don't they? IMHO supporting anything but US ASCII is presumptuous.

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