Re: ISSUE-88 / Re: what's the language of a document ?

I think that only allowing a single language to be specified is a mistake.
There are often multiple languages in a document, and forcing one of them
must be a "primary" language (and thus neglecting the others) simply doesn't
reflect reality. If that can be remedied, it should be.

Mark


On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 19:32, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com> wrote:

>
> Richard, thoughts on this response? Do you think further changes are needed
> on any of these points?
>
> (To my casual reading, it seems like point 3 was the most clearly rejected
> and is the most directly related to <
> http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8088>, the bug that was
> originally filed, rejected and escalated, resulting in this tracker issue.)
>
> Regards,
> Maciej
>
>
> On Feb 21, 2010, at 6:11 PM, Ian Hickson wrote:
>
>  On Tue, 9 Feb 2010, Richard Ishida wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Are you ok to apply the points in
>>> http://www.w3.org/International/wiki/Htmlissue88 to the spec?
>>>
>>
>>  From that document:
>>>
>>
>> | [1] Replace the term 'document-wide default language' with the term
>> | 'Content-Language pragma language'.
>>
>> The spec currently uses the term "pragma-set default language".
>>
>>
>> | [2] [...] clarify why the HTTP and pragma declarations are different
>> | when it comes to values, and how they should be used
>>
>> The confusion is intended to be clarified by simply discouraging authors
>> from using the pragma at all.
>>
>> The proposed text:
>>
>> | Note: Declarations in the HTTP header and the Content Language pragma
>> | are metadata, referring to the document as a whole and expressing the
>> | expected language or languages of the audience of the document.
>> | A language attribute on an element describes the actual language used in
>> | the range of content bounded by that element (and so values are limited
>> | to a single language at a time).
>>
>> ...seems to just muddy the waters further. Per HTTP, the Content-Langauge
>> HTTP header is supposed to say what languages the document is intended
>> for, and doesn't say anything about the contents of the document. The
>> pragma, on the other hand, just sets the default language of the page. The
>> pragra really has more in common with the attribute than the header, in
>> terms of actual practical effect.
>>
>> I'm certainly open to adding more disambiguating text, but I think it
>> would be helpful to have some pointers to e-mails showing the confusion so
>> that a more directed disambiguation could be crafted.
>>
>>
>> | [3] [allow the pragma to have more than one value, because] There is
>> | consensus that the current syntax should not be changed, and that it
>> | should be possible to continue to specify multiple languages in the
>> | pragma.
>>
>> I disagree that there's consensus here. I don't understand the value of
>> allowing authors to specify values that are going to be ignored by
>> processors.
>>
>>
>> | [4] Remove 'primary' from:
>> |
>> | "The lang attribute (in no namespace) specifies the primary language for
>> | the element's contents and for any of the element's attributes that
>> | contain text. Its value must be a valid BCP 47 language code, or the
>> | empty string. [BCP47]"
>> |
>> | Rationale:
>> |
>> | Only one language can be declared at a time.
>>
>> Only one language can be _declared_ at a time, but that doesn't mean only
>> one language is actually contained in the element.
>>
>>
>> | [5] [...] If the pragma attribute contains a comma-separated list of
>> | languages, it cannot be determined with any degree of certainty which of
>> | the languages matches the content of the text.
>>
>> This was handled by changing the UA requirements of the pragma.
>>
>>
>> I recommend going through the normal process for these, by the way (using
>> bugs and so forth) rather than jumping straight to the Change Proposal
>> stage. It will help ensure that we keep issues focused.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> --
>> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
>> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
>> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
>>
>>
>
>