Re: meta content-language

Hi Leif,

On Aug 22, 2008, at 1:27 AM, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:

>
> Phillips, Addison 2008-08-21 22.06:
>
>>>> In any case, all of the http-equiv attributes are defined
>>>> by HTTP. That is its definition in HTML.
>>> It's not the definition in HTML5 as drafted.
>> I think the point is that it should be.
> [...]
>> I do support having the pragma, but it should have the meaning
>> defined by RFC 2616 and (normatively) it should be consistent
>> with the RFCs *and nothing more*. If Frontpage or Vignette or
>> whatever want to do something useful with the information,
>> bully for them. But don't set the page processing language by
>> fiat or change the allowed format/values.
>
> So is it your view that not only the HTML 5 draft, but even the HTML  
> 4 spec is wrong on this as well?
>
> From HTML 4, Section 8.1.2, Inheritance of language codes:
>
> An element inherits language code information according
> to the following order of precedence (highest to lowest):
>   * The lang attribute set for the element itself.
>   * The closest parent element that has the lang attribute
>     set (i.e., the lang attribute is inherited).
>   * The HTTP "Content-Language" header (which may be
>     configured in a server). For example:
>     Content-Language: en-cockney
>   * User agent default values and user preferences.

My understanding is that we don't want that order of precedence  
changed. That is we don't want the meta pragma used by UAs when the  
lang attribute is present.

On a slightly separate issue, I think we should make it clear that the  
language code should be the first one in the http Content-Language so  
that if a document has: <meta http-equiv='Content-Language'  
content='en, he'>, it treats and there's no lang attribute, it treats  
it as 'en' (which is I think what the current draft does).

On Aug 22, 2008, at 2:20 AM, Andrew Cunningham wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, August 22, 2008 5:55 am, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>>
>
>>> In any case, all of the http-equiv attributes are defined by HTTP.
>>> That is its definition in HTML.
>>
>> It's not the definition in HTML5 as drafted.
>
> exactly, but I believe Roy's point is that Content-Language isn't  
> part of
> HTML, rather its part of the HTTP standard and defined there, and that
> HTML5 should not be defining its own version.

True, but the other contention (not mine) is that the http-equiv  
pragmas are to be decoupled in HTML5 from their http definitions  
(leaving just their names as a historical artifact). The biggest  
problem I see with that is that we've seen no use cases or problem  
statements to justify such a (potentially very confusing) decoupling.

Take care,
Rob

Received on Thursday, 21 August 2008 23:47:46 UTC