From: Peter Constable (petercon@microsoft.com)
Date: Thu May 13 2004 - 13:51:28 CDT
> > A "language" is an attribute of content, and a "language" ID
> > is used for
> > declaration of that attribute.
> >
> > A "locale" is an operational mode of software processes, and
> > a "locale"
> > ID is used in APIs to set or determine that mode.
>
> Oversimplified, I'm afraid. Consider machine translation software or
> computer-aided translation tools (e.g. translation memories). In
these:
>
> A "language" is an operational mode of software processes, and
> a "language" ID is used in APIs to set or determine that mode.
The translation memory content has a "language" attribute, and it's
appropriate to declare it using a "language" tag.
Assuming the software is not dealing with things like number formats,
the processing mode could be called a "language" mode or a "locale"
mode. The software infrastructures provided in platforms and programming
frameworks manage these modes using "locales", however, so I would say
that these applications are using locales.
Of course, a "language" tag in the translation memory can be used to set
the processing mode ("locale") of the software. More often than not,
though, I expect that what would be happening is that the "language"
element of the locale is being determined, and then corresponding
content is being retrieved from the translation memory.
So, I disagree: I do not think it is oversimplified. What is too simple
is the way that many people think and speak about it all.
Peter
Peter Constable
Globalization Infrastructure and Font Technologies
Microsoft Windows Division
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