[fpc-devel]FreePascal International Proyect

[Pavel V. Ozerski]

>APL and maybe some other exotic varieties..;-))). How do you think about
>localizing FPC into Russian or Chinese????

It would be relatively complex and not very useful. Complex because
1) you must make support for characters >#127 in keywords.
2) I don't know Chinese but know that this language uses instead true alphabet
a more complex hieroglyphic system. In this system every symbol means not a sound or
sounds sequence but a 'sense atom'. If it is true, every keyword could be replaced to 1-2 symbols!
I think, it would be not Pascal more!
3) Now I sent my opinion about the expediency of keywords translating into forum (as an answer to
"kind of problem in translating freepascal" in "Developing for Windows" section and therefore should
not repeat all my arguments against it. If they are interesing for somebody, it can find them here.
More useful for Russian programmers would be support of Russian (cyrillic) characters in user-defined variables,
types etc. But this feature is also not necessary because nearly all characters of Russian Alphabet
can be replaced to Latin symbols and Russian words written with these symbols are readable. For other hand,
introducing support of cyrillic characters will cause some additional problems because different operating systems
use different encoding tables for cyrillic characters (866 in DOS, 1251 in Windows, KOI-8 in UNIX-like systems etc).

Sincerely, Pavel




--
Pavel V. Ozerski            | Inst. of Evolutionary Physiology & Biochemistry,
office +7 (812)552-6870(291)|           Russian Academy of Sciences,
FAX    +7 (812)552-3012     |  Thorez pr. 44, St.Petersburg, 194223, Russia
home   +7 (812)528-5576     |  E-mail:  pavel at insect.mail.iephb.ru
                            |           pavel at insect.ief.spb.su