RE: A couple of comments on Authoring Techniques

Chaps,

This is a draft proposed response to François' comments on the first WD of Authoring Techniques. Please check before I send. If I hear nothing in a few days, I'll just send to Liam.

RI


 

Hello François,

Thankyou for your comments on the first WD of  Authoring Techniques for XHTML & HTML Internationalization.  Please find responses below.

Note also that we intend to release new working drafts before the AC meeting.  We have, in the meantime, split the original document up into 3 topic-focussed documents.  We aim to produce more such documents as we develop the material.  The in-edit versions of the new documents are:
  Characters and Encodings 1.0 
  http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/tech-character.html
  Specifying the language of content 1.0 
  http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/tech-lang.html
  Handling Bidirectional Text 1.0 
  http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/tech-bidi.html

There is also a new outline overview document at http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/outline/html-authoring-outline.html




> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-i18n-comments-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:www-i18n-comments-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of 
> François Yergeau
> Sent: 11 October 2003 04:35
> To: www-i18n-comments@w3.org
> Subject: A couple of comments on Authoring Techniques
> 
> 
> 3.2 says "Where practical, declare the page's character 
> encoding by setting the charset parameter in the HTTP 
> Content-Type header."
> 
> I think this should be just the opposite: servers should shut 
> up and let (X)HTML documents speak for themselves.  Several 
> years' experience has shown that servers get it wrong much of 
> the time when they bother to set charset.  Since this setting 
> has precedence, this really breaks the whole thing.  Please 
> recommend that servers *not* set charset, unless they have a 
> good reason to do it and actually do it right.


Yes, we discussed this.  The consensus was to leave as is, but provide pros and cons in the explanation which made these points.  See http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/tech-character.html#IDARUJO


> 
> See also the recent thread on the TAG list on this (starting 
> at [1]) as well as section 4.9.6 of the Web Architecture WD 
> [2]: "In the case of XML, since it is self-describing, it is 
> good practice to omit the charset parameter".
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Sep/0042.html
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-webarch-20031001/#xml-media-types
> 
> ===================================================================
> 
> In 4.1, there's an ed. note that says "Describe the evils of 
> using <font> to cheat on the charset and represent other 
> scripts."  You may want to take a look at my old (1996) rant 
> on this at http://babel.alis.com/web_ml/html/fontface.html.


Thanks.  We will reread that when we next update that section.



Thanks for your comments!
Richard
For the GEO TF



> 
> --
> François
> 
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 28 April 2004 14:00:26 UTC