Chapter 1. A Roadmap for the Internationalization Process

LEARNING IS LIKE CLIMBING a mountain. When you stand at the bottom of a mountain, you cannot actually see the top; the side of the mountain gets in the way. What you see is the first peak on the horizon. As you climb over that peak, you see the next peak on the horizon. You keep doing this until the last peak is the summit and your climb is over. I have always felt that technical subjects seem simple when I don't know anything about them. As I climb each peak, I see the other subjects behind my initially imperfect view and realize that there is more to climb. Each peak reveals new peaks that I was not aware of.

Internationalization is like a mountain. From the outside, the subject might seem simpleyou just translate all the text, don't you? But as each problem is solved, it allows us to see other problems on the horizon. From the bottom of the mountain, it is difficult to see all the peaks before we reach the top. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an aerial view of the mountain. Its goal is to help project managers and developers appreciate some of the higher-level decisions that must be made in the internationalization of an application. It poses many questions and leaves most unanswered. The answers lie in the subsequent chapters of this book. If you are a developer, lend your copy of this book to your project manager (or buy him or her a new copy) and ask him or her to read this chapter; with this overview, managers should get a broad grasp of your world.