|
|
Recommended: Sing it, brah! 5 fabulous songs for developers
JW's Top 5
Featured White Papers
- Measuring Risk to Improve Java Software Quality
- Do You Really Get Classloaders?
- Pragmatic Continuous Delivery with Jenkins, Nexus, and LiveRebel
- Your Next Java Web App: Less XML, No Long Restarts, Fewer Hassles
- Coding with JRebel, Java Forever Changed
- 2012 Developer Productivity Report: Java Tools, Tech, Devs, and Data
Sponsored Links
-
Graph databases are 1000x faster than relational.
Learn More!
-
Career opportunities at Harman- Careers That'll Rock Your Socks Off.
Learn More!
-
Developer-friendly Java PDF libraries by Qoppa Software
Live Demos
-
Stop blaming your app! Diagnose Java performance issues.
Free tool >
-
UrbanCode: Go From Continuous Integration to
Continuous DeliveryLearn More!
Sponsored Links
Optimize with a SATA RAID Storage Solution
Range of capacities as low as $1250 per TB. Ideal if you currently rely on servers/disks/JBODs
Exceptional practices, Part 3
Use message catalogs for easy localization
Page 4 of 4
Resource bundles can also be used for other localizeable resources, such as text used in Swing components like buttons and labels, or even for nontextual resources like audio files or images.
Hidden dividends from message catalogs
Message catalogs not only simplify the localization process, they also greatly simplify the maintenance of a product's multiple localized versions. With each release, localizers need only compare the resource bundle's previous version with the current one to know exactly what incremental localization work is required.
Using message catalogs to store exception message strings offers another hidden benefit. Once you've placed all the exception messages in a message catalog, you now have a comprehensive list of all the exception messages your application might throw. This provides an easy starting point for the documentation writer to use when creating the manual's "Troubleshooting" or "Error Messages" section. Message catalogs also make it easy for documentation writers to track changes in the resource bundles and ensure the documentation stays in sync with the software. And since error messages are arguably more a function of documentation than engineering, using resource bundles renders it more practical for the documentation writers to own the resource bundle source files, which is probably good for everyone involved -- developers and users alike.
Create useful error messages
Maintaining error message strings using message catalogs requires a bit more work up front than the obvious way of building
error messages, but it pays off in a number of ways. The ResourceBundle classes in the Java class libraries allow you to easily build message catalogs into your application. Not only does the message
catalog technique enforce a clean separation between the UI and the program logic, it also makes it easier to localize the
software and maintain localized versions, and to produce documentation that accurately reflects what the program does. As
a further bonus, because ResourceBundle classes make it simpler for people other than the developer to be involved in error message creation, they make it more likely
that the error messages will be useful to the user.
About the author
Brian Goetz is a professional software developer with more than 15 years of experience. He is a principal consultant at Quiotix, a software development and consulting firm located in Los Altos, Calif.Read more about Tools & Methods in JavaWorld's Tools & Methods section.
- Feedback
More from JavaWorld
Resources
- "Exceptional Practices," Brian Goetz (JavaWorld)
- Part 1Use exceptions effectively in your programs
- (August 2001)
- Part 2Use exception chaining to preserve debugging information
- (September 2001)
- Part 3Use message catalogs for easy localization (December 2001)
- See the Java Specification Language, written by James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy Steele, and Gilad Bracha, for a discussion of exceptions
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/exceptions.doc.html#44044 - The Javadoc for Throwable in JDK 1.4 explains exception chaining
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/java/lang/Throwable.html - The Java Tutorial, Mary Campione, Kathy Walrath, Alison Huml (Addison-Wesley, 2000; ISBN0201703939) provides a lesson on exceptions
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/essential/exceptions/index.html - For a quick rundown on how exception handling in Java differs from C, read the excerpt of "Exceptions and Exception Handling"
from Chapter 2 of Java in a Nutshell by David Flanagan (O'Reilly & Associates, 1999; ISBN1565924878)
http://www.ora.com/catalog/javanut/excerpt/index.html#except - "Exceptions in JavaNothing Exceptional About Them," Gaurav Pal, Sonal Bansal (JavaWorld, August 2000)
http://www.javaworld.com/jw-08-2000/jw-0818-exceptions.html - "How the Java Virtual Machine Handles Exceptions," Bill Venners (JavaWorld, January 1997)
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-01-1997/jw-01-hood.html - To learn more about developing software for the global marketplace, read "Internationalize Your Software," Jeff Friesen (JavaWorld)
- Part 1Learn how to develop software for the global marketplace (December 1998)
- Part 2Explore concepts of internationalization and localization; characters and character definition standards; locales; and resource bundles (January 1999)
- Part 3Explore dates, time zones, calendars, formatters, and international fonts (February 1999)
- Read more JavaWorld articles by Brian Goetz:
- "The Lucene Search EnginePowerful, Flexible, and Free" (September 2000)
- "Tweak Your IO Performance for Faster Runtime" (November 2000)
- "Design for Performance, Part 1Interfaces Matter" (January 2001)
- "Design for Performance, Part 2Reduce Object Creation" (February 2001)
- "Design for Performance, Part 3Remote Interfaces" (March 2001)
- "Avoid Synchronization Deadlocks" (October 2001)
- "Can ThreadLocal Solve the Double-Checked Locking Problem?" (November 2001)
- Read other articles by Brian Goetz
http://www.quiotix.com/~brian/pubs.html - To read more from JavaWorld on Testing, browse our Topical Index
http://www.javaworld.com/channel_content/jw-testing-index.shtml - Speak out in our Java Forum
http://forums.idg.net/webx?13@@.ee6b802 - Sign up for JavaWorld's free weekly email newsletters
http://www.javaworld.com/subscribe - You'll find a wealth of IT-related articles from our sister publications at IDG.net
About Us | Advertise | Contact Us | Terms of Service/Privacy | AdChoices
Copyright, 2006-2013 Infoworld, Inc. All rights reserved.