Isolating Localizable Resources

The greatest aid to localization is to separate localizable resources from application source code. Separating these resources from source code eliminates the need to recompile source code. However, resources that do not require localization should be kept separate from those that do. There are four categories of resources:

• User Interface (UI) - Resources that can usually be localized without any loss of functionality.
• Product adaptation - Resources such as strings that need to be localized. If possible, design the application to query the underlying platform instead of storing information such as currency and date formats within the application.
• Debug - Resources that should not be localized since it is unlikely that you will ship a debug version of your application.
• Functional - Resources such as strings that cannot be localized without a loss of functionality.