Re: Hebrew

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On 9 Apr 2001, Florian Weimer wrote:
> Mike Brenner <mikeb@mitre.org> writes:
> 
> > BTW this is important for quite a few languages, not just
> > Hebrew. It is fundamental for Arabic, Biblical Hebrew,
> > Farsi, Ancient Greek, etc., per se.
> 
> I believe that some languages (very Ancient Greek) use both writing
> directions alternatively. There isn't much software which supports
> that, if any at all.

Word for the day: "boustrophedon". 

> > Various 16-bit codes have advantages for Asian
> > languages, eCommerce encodings, multi-language web sites.
> 
> There are many, manu national standards, and I think that's a problem.
> For a developer who is interested in internationalizing his software,
> it's very difficult to obtain all the necessary documentation.
> Implementing Unicode is probably much easier.
> 
> > The question is, is it important for English speaking people to make
> > codings, software, web sites, advertisements, etc., that work well
> > for people of many different languages?
> 
> Well, my native language is German, so my answer is yes, definitely.

My native language is American English, and I agree with you. However, 
I suspect that for the kinds of SW I work on, mostly engineering SW, 
the answer today is no. Still, a general purpose language should provide
the tools to implement internationalized software. 

-- Brian