Product Description

The purpose of this book is twofold: First to describe what needs to be done to internationalize XML documents and applications; second to describe how the XML data can be localized efficiently.

There is currently almost no information on these two topics grouped and organized in a single reference. In addition, while XML has evolved a lot the past 2 years, it has now reached a point of global acceptance, as evidenced by the many international XML working groups addressing trading partner agreements, electronic document exchange, business processes, and eBusiness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #933460 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

From the Back Cover
The purpose of this book is twofold: First to describe what needs to be done to internationalize XML documents and applications; second to describe how the XML data can be localized efficiently.

There is currently almost no information on these two topics grouped and organized in a single reference. In addition, while XML has evolved a lot the past 2 years, it has now reached a point of global acceptance, as evidenced by the many international XML working groups addressing trading partner agreements, electronic document exchange, business processes, and eBusiness.

About the Author

Yves Savourel has been involved in internationalization and localization for more than a decade: first at International Language Engineering (ILE), then at Sykes Enterprises, and now at the RWS Group. His first localization project was WordStar version 7 in six languages and in IBM Assembler. Too lazy to deal with the tedious work of resizing strings manually, Yves wrote a utility to do it. This led to more tools, and ultimately the creation of the R&D group at ILE.

While giving software internationalization classes and providing consulting, Yves' main focus has always been on developing tools and solutions for localization processes. SGML and XML have been part of these developments. Yves is one of the creators of the OpenTag format and technical co-chair of the OSCAR group at LISA for TMX. He is also part of the recent development of XLIFF and other XML-related initiatives for internationalization and localization.

Yves is a native of Brittany. He lived in France, Africa, and on islands in the Indian Ocean before settling in Boulder, Colorado. He is still a traveler at heart, and takes every opportunity to learn about different cultures and see new horizons, whether they are peaceful Burmese villages on the banks of the Kwai River or hectic business parks in Silicon Valley.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book on "XML tools for Internationalization"
Yves Savourel's book on XML Internationalization and Localization is an excellent resource and definitely worth reading for anyone working with XML in an international environment.

I found the first part of the book especially helpful, the second part is very focussed on translation processes, assuming that web content internationalization and localization occurs in a similar fashion to software product development, which is not necessarily the case. "XML Tools for Internationalization and Localization" might have been a more appropriate title.

The comparison of translation tools is very long and difficult to read, with unnecessary screenshots showing all samples. A tabular overview on standards compliance and supported features, together with one set of testcases, would be sufficient. The XML database chapter, on the other hand, could be expanded with more information on native XML databases.

Typographical conventions leave room for improvement, including the choice of fonts, indentation in structured example and the overuse of line continuation characters in places where line breaks are not significant.

Brilliant - Much Needed Compendium
This is a brilliantly written and well-illustrated compendium of information on the localization and internationalization of the Extensible Markup Language format that is becoming the standard means to store and exchange data on the web and in large-scale deployments. The book is well structured, going from basic encoding and structural aspects to advanced uses. It also covers practical aspects of authoring and internationalizing data, and then translating it. This book is a MUST for everyone in the Globalization Industry, not just those interested in XML.

A truly excellent book
This book was truly a pleasure to read. A good writing style, a lot of information, and a tight editing job that really makes both the messenger and the message look better. What more could a person ask for?

XML is definitely out there, and it seems to be a lot more than just a buzzword. Finally there is a book that makes it seem more accessible to international markets.

Well, not everything was perfect. But it was so much better than some of the other books out there, that it definitely deserves 4/5 stars.