The Developer's Guide to Building Global Windows and Web Applications
by Guy Smith-Ferrier published by Addison-Wesley ISBN 0321341384

Latest News

22 April 2013 - Visual Studio 2012 Source Code now available

10 March 2012 - Visual Studio 2010 Source Code updated

01 September 2010 - Visual Studio 2010 Source Code now available

01 September 2010 - Visual Studio 2008 Source Code updated

26 April 2009 - Visual Studio 2008 Source Code updated

2 Dec 2008 - Visual Studio 2008 Source Code now available

27 Sept 2008 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

31 July 2008 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

3 July 2008 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

26 May 2008 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

20 April 2008 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

3 November 2007 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

18 July 2007 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

09 March 2007 - Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

14 December 2006 - Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

15 November 2006 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

30 October 2006 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

6 October 2006 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

4 October 2006 - Visual Studio 2003 Source Code available for download

19 September 2006 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

17 August 2006 - Second Sample Chapter added to downloads

14 August 2006 - First edition of book released

5 June 2006 - Sample Chapter updated with final draft

13 May 2006 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code updated

10 April 2006 - Book production process begins

21 Oct 2005 - Visual Studio 2005 Source Code available for download

7 Sept 2005 - Website launched

Reviews

Here's what people are saying about .NET Internationalization:-


 
Craig Murphy, posted on CraigMurphy.com , 13th August 2007

The longest review of .NET Internationalization ever - 4.5 stars out of 5. Click on the link to see the review.


 
Alex Homer, posted on Amazon.com , 18th March 2007

Everything you ever wanted to know.... 5 stars.

Like most English people, my multilingual capabilities extend to English, American, and Shouting. But as I've increasingly worked at conferences across Europe, I've become more aware at just how difficult it is for non-English speakers, and those for whom English is not their first language. It's when you attend a conference in somewhere like Austria, and all the sessions except yours are in German (de-AT or de-DE) that you realize you have a long way to go to even start to support other languages and cultures in your applications.

While I've tried hard to tailor my examples, by internationalizing them as far as I can using the features of ASP.NET 2.0, this book opened my eyes to the huge number of other issues that such "translated" applications actually face. It's then you realize that, without a professional approach and solid information on the whole gamut of gotchas involved, translating the text is just scratching the surface...

And that's why you really do need this book. It's packed with detailed, and often "inside" information that spans every related topic area. It covers not only theory and guidance on the best practical techniques, but tools and resources that can help. In fact, the detail it contains is so thorough that you'll find yourself reading some chapters over again to get to grips with the complex internal workings on .NET and Windows. Yet it's written in a friendly, readable, and often amusing way that makes perusing topics a pleasure as well as being informative.

Make no mistake, this is not a "read and remember" book. Be prepared to keep it near to hand as a reference, as you'll need to study each chapter to grasp and apply the techniques properly - and in enough depth - to make your application "world-ready". And even if you only ever build applications in one language, it's worth reading this book just to help you understand the internationalization features available, and the how to get the best from .NET. You never know, one day you may have to build a multi-language version of your Web site or Windows application...


  
Kathleen Dollard, posted on Amazon.com , 1st February 2007

An invaluable book. 5 stars.

I don't rave about books very often, but this book is worth the rave.

It's perhaps the best written hard-core technical book I've ever read, and one of the few where I didn't skip half. Topics are correctly grouped and covered to an appropriate depth with clear explanations of when and why you need specific features. If you are not familiar with internationalization - the first part of the book covers basics such as why a culture is needed and the fallback process.

If you think you know about .NET internationalization - you already know about cultures and resource managers and localizable, but you've never actually localized an application, the insight into the process - such as the value of pseudo translators will be very helpful. It also covers a boatload of language nuances from the Turkish letter I to non-cased languages.

I came to this book with an extremely difficult internationalization problem that I thought we would have to kludge by walking controls on form load. This book went deep enough into the internationalization customization points and pointed out a critical trick I had not seen, that I am building a localization system that will work for us. Instead of being kludged on top and parallel, this book showed me how to leverage the .NET extensibility to solve the problem. I did not find enough information on making the internationalization extensibility model actually work elsewhere.

I know a good bit about Winforms, the framework, and code generation and this book is solid in the coverage of these topics. I learned things I didn't know, especially that InitializeComponent code injection trick - which is also one of the best examples of why business programmers might want to know a little about the CodeDOM (one way to do code generation).

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in internationalization in .NET, whether an introduction, rubber meets the road suggestions/experience, or black belt insight into the extensibility points.


 
Rob Macdonald, posted on Amazon.co.uk , 24th December 2006

Very solid book on an oft-forgotten topic. 5 stars.

Really good books are not only well written and informative, they change the way you think about things. I have accumulated a hotchpotch of information and half truths about internationalisation over the years, but never set out to really understand it, and its place in the development cycle. This book has allowed me to grasp internationalisation properly, and exposed me to a wealth of eye-opening insights.

Yes, I expected to learn the difference between globalisation and localisation, between left-to-right amd right-to-left languages, and between culture and UICulture. However, I had never stopped to consider how different cultures perform alphabetic sorting differently, or use different calendars. Smith-Ferrier's book not only started me thinking about the world differently, but explained how, properly used, the .NET Framework addresses many internationalisation issues transparently. I had no idea this stuff was in there.

I particularly liked the differences between 1.1 and 2.0, the appropriate separation of treatment for Web and Windows, the best practices, the road map, the attention to detail and the obvious depth of knowledge behind each sentence this author has written.

What's the point of buying yet another C# or ASP.NET book? It is refreshing to find such a good book on a topic on which few write seriously.


 
Dave A., posted on Amazon.com , 9th November 2006

Awesome. 5 stars.

This is actually one of the best technical books that I have read in a long time. It is to the point, it does not reiterate, it is well considered in its structure and it elegantly covers the topic from the beginner to the advanced.


 
Ian Elliot, Visual Systems Journal, 27th October 2006

Pros: A good introduction to the problem
Cons: None
Verdict: :-))

The full review is on page 46 of the November 2006 issue of Visual Systems Journal.



IT Professional, posted on IT Professional , 25th October 2006

Click on the link to see the review (it's on page 59).



Will Wagers, posted on C# Online , 23rd October 2006

Click on the link to see the review. 4.5 stars out of 5.



Chris Myhill, posted on Amazon UK, 20th October 2006

When I sat down with a copy of ‘.NET Internationalization: The Developer's Guide to Building’ by Guy Smith-Ferrier I was sure that if Guy writes in the same style he presents then I would be in for a great read, although I was dubious about this as writing styles and presenting styles can differ greatly.

I am glad to say that I was not at all disappointed, the layout and flow of each section and chapter of his book was logical and lead me through the process of understanding the issues around internationalisation and the implementation of an application which would appeal to a global market. The flow of the book was so good that I found myself reading chapter after chapter without feeling overwhelmed with information or left with more questions than answers.

Not only does the book cover every aspect of internationalising Windows and ASP.NET applications and the impact different languages have on the design of an application, Guy has even taken the time to explain the intricacies of how the framework handles an environment where the displayed language can change. Like any good author Guy has even taken the time to back up his knowledge by supplying you with tools to ease this part of the development process.

If like me you have been wary if internationalisation and hoped that someone else will deal with it or have implemented a solution you ‘think’ should work, I suggest that you lock yourself away and read this book before you go any further.

Guy is one of a few experts in this field and this is evident by the amount and quality of information provided on a topic which is misunderstood by many. Armed with this book I feel I can now lead my development team in the pursuit of creating internationalised applications.



Tom Duff, posted on Duffbert's Random Musings and Amazon US , 4th October 2006

Click on the link to see the review.



Martin Peck, posted on Amazon UK, 29th August 2006

A Must Have For .NET Developers

If you're serious about developing .NET applications then you should read this book to get yourself up to speed on how you might make your apps ready for shipping across the world. Even if you never intend shipping your applications outside of your home country it'll give you an insight into the issues and challenges that you might face should you later change your mind.

The book covers .NET 1.1 and 2.0, showing how the .NET 2.0 Framework make internationalization a whole lot easier.

Developers will get a lot from this book, but it'll also prove really useful for everyone on a delivery team - testers, project managers etc. It will give non-developers an insight into the efforts involved in making an application work in many languages, and will help non-developers plan accordingly.

The book is well written, and very easy to read. It's a good technical book with plenty of good samples and walk throughs.

This is one of those books that all .NET developers should have access to.