Application Program: Test of ability with arithmetic

Here is an idea for an application program for the laptop. As well as being a useful application program to have available, hopefully the development of this application program will be an important opportunity to gain valuable experience is the development of applications for the laptop, covering such topics as design, documentation, localization and finding out whether a team of enthusiasts from around the globe can put together an application which will be of practical usefulness to the project.

Please join in and edit this page so that the development of the application program can gradually proceed by utilizing the knowledge and skills of many people.

How do we start?

Is the best way to write the documentation first, in English? If all strings are included in English then maybe people who do not have English as their native language yet who know English will choose to translate the strings into their native language. Hopefully the availability of those strings in various langauges will help a programmer who knows the linux system and has sufficient knowledge of the laptop to produce an application program which will run on the laptop in a variety of languages. How would that be done? Would the strings be built in to the application program or would they be in an external file? Building strings into the program would make the program more self-contained yet putting the strings in a file would mean that localization to another language would be more straightforward. Is it best to start with, say, a Spanish version or a Portuguese version with the strings built in to the program as a first stage with the strings in an external file being a second stage, or should the attempt be made to go straightaway to an application program where the strings are in an external file? What is the best way to localize an application program on the linux platform?