Comments of "Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1", W3C Working Draft 12 September 2008 from the ITS-IG

Dear SML editors,

After looking at the "Service Modeling Language, Version 1.1", W3C Working Draft 12 September 2008, (located here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-sml-20080912/), the ITS Interest group has the following remark:

In the appendices F "Localization and Variable Substitution Sample (Non-Normative)", the example given uses properties-like files to
store the locale-specific entries. Such entries may includes XML parts as in this example:

StudentIDErrorMsg = L'identifieur specifie <sch:value-of select="string(u:ID)"/> ne commence pas par 99.

We think it would be more useful to provide an example that uses XML to store the locale-specific entries, for two main reasons:

a) Translating XML documents is generally easier than other file format (especially when the text conains XML elements).

b) Using an XML document for storage would allow the users to use ITS to enhance the information provided along with the text to
localize (localization notes, directionality information, etc.).

Therefore we suggest to replace this section:

-----------------
The file http://www.university.example.org/translation/fr_lang.txt contains the French translation of the sch:assert message,
identified by StudentIDErrorMsg, which is the {local part} information of the sml:locid attribute:

StudentIDErrorMsg = L'identifieur specifie <sch:value-of select="string(u:ID)"/> ne commence pas par 99.

The file http://www.university.example.org/translation/de_lang.txt contains the German translation for the sch:assert message. The
message is identified by StudentIDErrorMsg, which is the {local part} information of the sml:locid attribute:

StudentIDErrorMsg = Das angegebene Attributkennzeichen ID <sch:value-of select="string(u:ID)"/> beginnt nicht mit 99.
-----------------

By something similar to this:

-----------------
The file http://www.university.example.org/translation/fr_lang.xml contains the French translation of the sch:assert message,
identified by StudentIDErrorMsg, which is the {local part} information of the sml:locid attribute:

<messages xmlns:sch="http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron" xml:lang='fr'>
 <msg xml:id='StudentIDErrorMsg'>L'identifiant specifié <sch:value-of select="string(u:ID)"/> ne commence pas par 99.</msg>
</messages>

The file http://www.university.example.org/translation/de_lang.xml contains the German translation for the sch:assert message. The
message is identified by StudentIDErrorMsg, which is the {local part} information of the sml:locid attribute:

<messages xmlns:sch="http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron" xml:lang='de'>
 <msg xml:id='StudentIDErrorMsg'>Das angegebene Attributkennzeichen ID <sch:value-of select="string(u:ID)"/> beginnt nicht mit
99.</msg>
</messages>

Note: In this example, the XML documents containing the text could also use the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS:
http://www.w3.org/TR/its/) to provide localization-specific information that can be processed automatically by translation tools.
-----------------

And to make the corresponding modifications in the examples used later in the section.


One last note: There is a spelling error in the French message in the draft document: "L'identifieur specifie" should be
"L'identifiant specifié" (an accent is missing, and 'identifier' should really be 'identifiant').


Kind regards,
-yves savourel
For the ITS Interest Group.

Received on Friday, 31 October 2008 17:30:51 UTC