Press Release

March 16, 2001

Parlez-Vous Java? Write Once, Run Anywhere (In the World)

Sebastopol, CA--On the Internet, there are almost no barriers against international commerce--except language. Unfortunately, most software is still written in English. The most recent release in O'Reilly's Java series, Java Internationalization (Deitsch & Czarnecki (US) $39.95), shows how to write software that is truly multi-lingual, using Java's very sophisticated internationalization facilities.

"Many of the assumptions programmers make are not acceptable when developing global applications," says coauthor Andrew Deitsch. "They can easily make simple assumptions, for example that punctuation marks are the same or that text is written from left to right. Ignorance of cultural and linguistic differences can cause major problems for companies." As the authors explain, this is why simple translation of software applications will not do the job for international markets.

English-only software is already obsolete. Java Internationalization, written by multi-lingual authors with extensive backgrounds in ecommerce and internationalized software apps, brings Java developers up to speed on the new generation of software development: writing software that is no longer limited by language boundaries.

"The designers of Java realized early on that support for global software development would be an important language feature," says Deitsch, "Developing internationalized software, however, requires a lot more than simply encoding characters in Unicode. You need to be aware of proper usage patterns and common pitfalls to truly make your software internationalized."

Unicode (a standard system for the interchange, processing, and display of written text in 24 different languages) is thoroughly integrated at just about every level of Java. In addition to covering methods for writing software that will "pass for native," this practical new book explores Java Unicode and provides concrete examples for using its features to create multilingual user interfaces, to correctly format currency, dates and times, and to ensure font support for different languages.

Java Internationalization brings Java developers up to speed on the new generation of software development: writing software that is no longer limited by language and cultural boundaries.

Additional Resources:

• "Andy and David's Top Ten Internationalization Tips" are available online.

• David Czarnecki and Andy Deitsch will provide an overview and an introduction to Java internationalization and how it fulfills the promise of "Write Once, Run Anywhere (in the world)" at the O'Reilly Conference on Enterprise Java, March 26-29, 2001, in Santa Clara, California.

• Chapter 4: "Isolating Locale-Specific Data with Resource Bundles," is available free online.

• Subscribe to O'Reilly elist on Java.

• More information about the book, including Table of Contents, index, author bio, and samples.

• A cover graphic in jpeg format.

About O'Reilly

O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

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