From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn)
Subject: Re: NeXT vs Mac (Again) was "Need to convin
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 00:05:24 GMT

johnsd2@vccsouth07.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
> gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) writes:
> >johnsd2@jec315.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
> 
> [deletia- PS level 2]
> >> What I meant was "a PostScript  printer".
> >> 
> >> That is a printer that understands postscript, rather than having
> >> the computer do it for it. Would this be upgraded?
> >
> >As noted later in my comments, you can't very well to postscript level 2  
> >stuff to a postscript printer which does not understand postscript
> >level 2 (or at least, NeXT can't cause that to happen...).  The NeXT
> >still does postscript level 1 to printers which don't understand
> >level 2.  NeXT users do this at RPI for instance.
> 
> Let me phrase it this way: I have a level 2 EPS file. Can I print
> it to a level 1 Postscript based printer with a NeXT?

Hmm.  Interesting question.  I'm not quite sure what it does in that case.

> >When a NeXT user tells you that the NeXT supports multiple languages,
> >the point *they* are making is that a single system can let different
> >users select the language of their choice.  Ie, you don't have to
> >install the "german system" if you're prefer to have menu items in
> >german.  There's one system, plus language packages that you install.
> 
> I hashed this out with someone via email.
> 
> The way it now looks, what the NeXT gives you is the ability to switch
> on the fly (if your apps were written in the approrpiate languages of
> course); this is something the Mac can't really do, but its not very
> important on a single-user system. (good fer demos tho)

Well, it's important for some people, or at least it's important enough that  
they have multiple system folders on their Mac hard disk.  Given the size of  
a system folder these days, and the hassle of a single person having  
multiple system folders, that's a significant investment.

For those that don't care about multiple languages, well, yes, it's not very  
important.

> We are not talking about the same neat trick. I meant mixing them
> up all higgledy piggledy. Sticking english text into Arabic text
> for instance.

You could do that before system 7.1, as I had software that did it.  It was  
a bit of a kludge though.

> >The point being made is that NeXT 3.0 supports multiple languages in 
> >a single system, as a user-settable preference item.  This does not
> >discount the kind of multi-language support that the Mac has had for
> >many years, it's just saying that NeXT has this added feature.  My
> >understanding is that System 7.1 (with worldscript) is supposed to
> >have the very same feature, so again I'm not saying that NeXT is
> >doing something stunning that Apple has never thought of.
> 
> System 7.1 does not have this feature.
> 
> It can let you USE multiple script systems, but it does not translate
> menus or anything like that. ONLY the USER uses them, not the apps.
> 
> The NeXT is doing something the Mac can't do. It's just not a very big
> something (unless you are multi-user, like the NeXT say..)

Hmm.  I must still be phrasing this wrong, because the above sounds like you  
have a different perception of things than I intended.  The NeXT doesn't  
really "translate" any menu items, it just comes with multiple versions of  
the character strings for menu items (dialog panels, etc) which are in the  
system.  The user selects "german", and the system uses the German version  
of the menu's.  Someone at NeXT sat down and created these language-specific  
menu items (dialogs, etc), nothing translated them on the fly.

The advantage here is that you have one copy of all the code in the system,  
with just multiple versions of the text.  My understanding of WorldScript is  
that it allows Apple to release one single system which has different  
resources (already included) for the different languages.  (that's in  
addition to the benefits you pointed out, with better handling of the  
different languages, such as the direction of Arabic vs European languages).

> >It's just a neat capability, and one that did not exist on the official  
> >Apple system software until recently.  While *you* may not see how this
> >is useful, for some people it is very desirable.  There are people at
> >RPI who have three different system folders on their Mac, for instance,
> >because they want to do things in English, Chinese, and Japanese.  If
> >you don't, that's fine.  For people who do, things like NS3.0 and (what
> >I understand of) WorldScript are very welcome developments.
> 
> Do they actually want their menus and buttons translated? That's what
> the NeXT is doing (among other things);  THAT'S the thing which seems
> minor to me.
> 
> >(in my case I'd actually be more interested in English, German, and
> >Hebrew, but that's just my interests...  Maybe Spanish too, if I
> >could remember my high-school spanish).
> 
> Ah, but do you wish to read your app buttons, etc in those languages?
> Or just the one your most proficient in?

I want to read them in the language I have selected.  In my case, think of  
it as more of a learning tool.  If everything on the computer is coming up  
in German, I'm going to get much more proficient in German (which at the  
moment isn't very hard to do, seeing that I hardly know any German).

The advantage of this whole feature to the computer manufacturer is pretty  
obvious, they only have one system which they need to release for the world.   
The advantage to the average user is probably not so clear.  It's probably  
only useful for people who *want* to be proficient in multiple languages.

> >Hmm, when worldscript was explained to me, the above is pretty much
> >exactly how it was described.  I don't have worldscript to say for
> >sure though (even though I do have system 7.1 installed, it seems
> >that the worldscript stuff doesn't come on the regular system 7.1
> >installation floppies).
> 
> It doesn't. There are good technical reasons (concerning resource forks)
> why Mac apps can't be easily updated to have MULTIPLE languages
> SIMULTANEOUSLY present. So I think I can be pretty confident that
> WorldScript doesn't do what you seem to be thinking.

Well, given that I've written programs on the Mac, the above comment makes  
me very confident that I'm not phrasing things right.

While I could certainly be overstating what WorldScript does, there aren't  
*any* technical reasons having to do with resource forks (or much of  
anything else, except maybe disk space) why applications on the Mac could  
not do exactly what NeXTSTEP applications can do.  Even if the code isn't  
written on the Mac yet, there is no technical reason preventing the feature  
from being implemented.

> >In any case, when a NeXT user says the system now supports multiple  
> >languages, they are refering to this ability to switch languages as
> >a preference item.  What you are countering with is certainly an
> >important feature, but it's not the same one that they (we, I guess)
> >are refering to.  The support *you* are refering to was also available
> >in earlier versions of NeXTSTEP, it isn't the feature added in NS3.0.
> 
> I know that... now.
> 
> I still dont see how the NeXT supports non-Roman scripts tho. Like,
> Chinese (writing backwards is fun) or Japanese (multi-byte character
> sets) or Arabic (context-dependant fonts! fun fun!)
> 
> My email coversation led me to believe the NeXT didn't cover
> this things. Is this so?

In Japan they sell NeXTSTEP as a Japanese/English system, so I'm assuming  
they have support for Japanese.  I don't know how it's done, but I believe  
NeXT's are selling pretty well in Japan (as are Macs, of course).  This may  
be a slightly different version of NeXTSTEP too (at the moment you can't get  
this on a machine bought inside the US, for instance).

I know that people are working on Chinese support in NeXTSTEP (an alumnus  
from RPI has seen the current work...), but it's not part of the official  
release yet.  I'm sure I have no idea how that is done.

I don't know what the status is on Arabic/Hebrew fonts on the NeXT.  I  
haven't actually seen anything about this, but I'd think that it wouldn't be  
all that much different to implement it on the NeXT than it is on the Mac.   
I don't know that anyone has already done the work for it, though.

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA