I can’t believe nobody has done this list yet. I mean, there is one about names, one about time and many others on other topics, but not one about languages yet (except one honorable mention that comes close). So, here’s my attempt to list all the misconceptions and prejudices I’ve come across in the course of my long and illustrious career in software localisation and language technology. Enjoy – and send me your own ones!
It would be a useful way to predict it possibly, but presumably the author meant if you have support for localization, you also provide an obvious and easy means of changing the language.
More importantly, you should be using the language an existing user has already used in the past.
Edit: come to think of it, this is less a programmer problem, and more of a UX problem. Obviously as programmers we need to take UX into consideration, but in all my products I’ve worked on, UX is specified already by a UX designer.
It’s not even that, there are multiple languages spoken in the same region. Webpages should just use the language the browser tells it to use.
I had assumed the author didn’t limit his statements to web browsers. If it’s an application on a user’s box, they should be using the language the OS provides.
In the case of less complex hardware, IoT or embedded devices with localization support, you would likely have another strategy if it doesn’t have a setup process. For something without internet or GPS, you can’t do this obviously. For something without a GUI, it’s unlikely to have localization support without direct design consideration for it’s destination.