I did it both ways. Dirty way is quick, but... dirty. Whan you face possibility that you can sell your system (40MB of source code) to Italy, but you need to translate it... you are happy later that they did not bought it.

And before that, another system designed to be multi-lingual from very beginning. It was pain start developing application by creating dictionary, and adding every stupid message as database entry. But translation was easy: Person knowing both accounting AND german translated our system into german in about two weeks. Compile it in new language environment, resolve some screen issues (some german words are much longer), and you are done! Piece of cake!

When thinking about multi-language system, you need to think also about translating abbreviations for codes. I.e. "BK" is excellent abbreviation for "Bankruptcy" in english, but not in italian. So your need to translate easy mnemonic status codes into other language, too. It is long way before settling on Standard Intragalactic Language...;-)

pmas
To make errors is human. But to make million errors per second, you need a computer.

In reply to Re: Re (tilly) 1: Perl Programs That Support Multiple (Human) Languages by pmas
in thread Perl Programs That Support Multiple (Human) Languages by John M. Dlugosz

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.