[fpc-pascal] SysLocale.PriLangID vs Mac OS X localization

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Tue, 24 Jun 2008, Jonas Maebe wrote:

> 
> On 24 Jun 2008, at 09:29, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
> 
> >But for a company that has 'Think different' as a motto the
> >insistence on adherence to the rules is ironic :-)
> 
> Actually, it makes perfect sense since it's apparently so different from what
> you are used to that you consider it a completely outlandish concept.

Only superficially. If you take the statement to its logical conclusion,
every application should be totally different from all other applications,
otherwise you didn't think 'different' when you designed it.
 
> >Secondly, all things you mention apply to advanced users only,
> 
> Compared to your customers, most Mac users probably are "advanced". Most
> certainly not because they are smarter or better, but because the consistency
> makes it easier to become advanced (learned skills carry over much more easily
> from one application to another). Even my mother is probably "advanced" in
> this way, even though she also started out with simply memorising which icons
> to click in which order (she really is everything but a computer person).

That's just experience. My 11 year old daughter has no problems with the
fact that we have Linux at home, even though they learn on Windows at
school.
 
> >and I dare say to developers only:
> >
> >I invite you to visit ALL our customers.
> 
> I invite you to ask on any number of "regular joe" Mac sites, forums or
> mailing lists how important the people there think that it is for a program to
> adhere to the standard user interface conventions (except for games, where
> total immersion into the game world is often more important, and simple
> widgets where you only have a text field and a button or so).

And this qualifies as 'advanced users'. The "regular joe" never ever visits
a website about computer programs. 

The audience on which you base your conclusions is not a representative sample, 
which - as any statistician will tell you, even psychologists know this :) 
- makes any conclusion worthless.

Basically, any web-based poll is useless unless your target audience is the
advanced web-user; A well-known fact for polling bureaus.

At most, you ccould conclude that the Mac users are a self-contained incrowd
of 'advanced users'. 

But once more: with the trend of web applications, I think they'll have no
option but to blend in with the mere mortals that make up the rest of the 
computer user crowd. The observation that they will resent this, is like
kicking in an open door...

All is relative, as a famous German scientist once said...

Michael.