0. Introduction and Getting Started

   An introduction to the workshop, its organization, and the tools available to participants: navigation, search, playback controls, and the glossary/index.

1. The Problem Domain: What Are We Up Against?

   A visual exploration of linguistic and cultural diversity and its impact on software. Particular attention is paid to Asian and bidirectional languages. The examples show what developers and managers need to consider when supporting international audiences.

   • Languages, scripts, grammar, and translation expansion
   • Asian and bidirectional languages: input, rendering, and text processing
   • Searching, sorting, and differences within a language
   • Numbers, currencies, dates, calendars, addresses, and other cultural conventions

2. Globalization Concepts

   The relationship between globalization, internationalization, localization, and translation. Why preparing for localization matters, what translators need, and how internationalization affects the cost and quality of successive releases.

   • Globalization, internationalization, localization, and translation
   • Levels of internationalization complexity
   • Clear source content, translation context, and terminology
   • Glossaries and translation memories
   • Maintaining internationalization across releases and adding languages

3. A Visual Model of Internationalization

   An animated model illustrates the three foundational tasks of internationalization: resource externalization, cultural generalization, and localization kit preparation. It shows how these tasks fit together to support a single executable and repeated localization.

   • Resource externalization and organization by audience and domain
   • Cultural generalization through platform services and internationalization libraries
   • Localization kit preparation and localization infrastructure
   • Automating and integrating the localization process

4. Managing Internationalization

   Planning and coordinating an internationalization project, from the business case and requirements through development, localization, testing, documentation, and customer support. Practical strategies for reducing risk and avoiding common pitfalls.

   • Business case, return on investment, and multilingual requirements
   • Internationalization audits, estimation, and planning
   • Risk reduction through reproducible builds and the baseline & compare strategy
   • Roles, responsibilities, and coordination across teams
   • Simultaneous releases, continuous globalization, and automation
   • Common myths and pitfalls

5. Dos and Don’ts

   Practical guidelines illustrated by examples from real projects. The emphasis is on preserving meaning and giving translators the context and flexibility they need.

   • Concatenation, pluralization, gender, and message formatting
   • String reuse across contexts and audiences
   • Alignment, abbreviation, text manipulation, and translation expansion
   • Localizable images and other overlooked resources
   • Recommendations for Unicode, locales, and resource handling

6. Testing Internationalization

   A visual introduction to internationalization and localization testing. Different techniques reveal different classes of problems, both before translations are available and after they are integrated.

   • A model of multilingual testing
   • Regression testing and multilingual data tests across complete data paths
   • Resource externalization, pseudo-translation, and automated pseudo-localization
   • Testing cultural generalization and localization infrastructure
   • Functional testing of actual localized versions
   • Platform coverage, multilingual bug workflows, and test-suite adaptation

7. Coded Character Sets: Past, Present, and Future
   • ASCII, single-byte code pages, and their limitations
   • Asian multibyte encodings, including ISO 2022, Shift-JIS, EUC, and GBK
   • Compatibility issues and text-processing pitfalls
   • Unicode beyond 16 bits: supplementary characters and the single-executable model
8. Unicode: Character Set and Standard
   • Code points, planes, special characters, and Unicode design principles
   • Characters versus glyphs, logical order, and unification
   • Combining marks, equivalent sequences, stability, and legacy compatibility
   • The Unicode Standard, its annexes, and the Unicode Character Database
   • Processing algorithms and character properties, updated to Unicode 18
9. Data Internationalization
   • UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32: representation, size, and supplementary characters
   • Byte order, serialization, the byte-order mark, and invalid sequences
   • Unicode normalization forms and their implications for stored text
   • Internationalized domain names, Punycode, and URL encoding
   • Unicode version requirements, East Asian standards, and consistent data handling
10. Code Internationalization
    • Case mapping and folding, character classification, and Unicode regular expressions
    • Transcoding, bidirectional text issues, and user-generated content
    • Locale-sensitive sorting and searching
    • Grapheme clusters and word, line, and sentence boundaries
    • Unicode libraries, tools, and efficient data structures
11. Locales
    • Language and locale identification with BCP 47 and Unicode locale extensions
    • Locale models for multiple audiences and preferred languages
    • Separate display and formatting locales
    • Locale negotiation, language selectors, and consistent language experiences
    • Locale propagation across layers and tiers
12. Text Resources
    • Translation context, string reuse, and audience-dependent wording
    • Resource containers, identifiers, naming strategies, and translator comments
    • Locale naming, resource lookup, and customized fallback paths
    • Finding, classifying, and externalizing resources, including messages with links
    • Exchange formats, including XLIFF 2.2, and coordination with localization vendors
    • The resource life cycle: extraction, translation handoff, integration, pseudo-localization, and updates
13. Input and Output
    • Character entry, keyboards, input methods, and Japanese reading fields
    • Fonts and text rendering across scripts and languages
    • Pan-Unicode fonts, font linking, fallback, and Noto
    • Font attributes, text emphasis, and regional glyph variations
    • Practical tools and guidelines for font selection, testing, and debugging

Selected topics explored in greater technical depth, primarily for architects, developers, database specialists, and internationalization specialists.

14. Database Internationalization: Translatable Columns

    Schema modifications and the resulting SQL when database columns become translatable. The emphasis is on backward compatibility, incremental internationalization, translation workflow, and automation.

    • Locale tables, session locale selection, and fallback
    • String tables, translation tables, and a hybrid model
    • SQL reads and writes, compatibility views, and INSTEAD OF triggers
    • Translation workflow, source-change detection, and translation status
    • Automating schema changes, data migration, and SQL transformations
    • Product-neutral design principles with examples for Oracle, SQL Server, and MySQL

    Chapter 14 is optional and is not required for certification.

Conclusion — Putting It All Together

The main lessons of the workshop and what they mean for the software you design and build: locale as an architectural dimension, translation and resource design, Unicode support across components, and maintaining global capabilities as products and teams evolve. View this conclusion after Chapter 13 or the optional Chapter 14.