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Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA5216 ; Tue, 22 Dec 92 13:00:16 EST Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:9186 comp.os.linux:19922 Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.linux Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!ub4b!inftec.be!mike From: mike@inftec.be (Mike Aerts) Subject: Re: Dumb Americans (was INTERNATIONALIZATION: JAPAN, FAR EAST) Message-ID: <1992Dec19.132545.2241@inftec.be> Keywords: Han Kanji Katakana Hirugana ISO10646 Unicode Codepages Organization: Information Technologies, Wemmel, Belgium. References: <mathias.724467456@sune.stacken.kth.se> <id.M2XV.VTA@ferranti.com> <1992Dec18.043033.14254@midway.uchicago.edu> Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 13:25:45 GMT Lines: 27 In article <1992Dec18.043033.14254@midway.uchicago.edu> goer@midway.uchicago.edu writes: >One of the big criticism leveled at US Engineers is that they are either >too dumb or lazy to build into their software support for non-Western I think a good programmer is lazy by definition :-) > >Incidentally, although it's true that US Engineers often have really >terrible language skills, this is due more to geographical isolation >than to organic stupidity. There's just no need for multilingualism >here in the states, the way there is in Europe, esp. in the low coun- >tries and Scandinavia. I'm from the low countries and hate those stupid signs on top of those letters, if you need to remember these for different languages it's a pain in the ass, but wait until you see some Vietnamese they are the champions I think. I think we ( the Belgians ) are champions too, we have 3 official languages for 10M people. I don't think it's a matter of isolation but size, the language skills of my French and German neighbors are IMHO not that impressive too. mike. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ E-mail : mike@inftec.BE | I think that it's extraordinarly important tel : +32 2 460.46.11 | that we in computer science keep fun in Fax : +32 2 460.56.50 | computing. .... A.J. Perlis