Re: Chat with Marcos Caceres

Hi Josh,
On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 3:26 PM, timeless<timeless@gmail.com> wrote:
> 9:01 AM me: hey, you won't like this, but... I think we botched the
> l10n stuff :). The problem is that the design is based on individual
> resources, which is wrong. Negotiation should really be done at the
> Package level. This is one of those things where thinking HTTPish
> screws you over. A user thinks about a web application or widget as a
> single resource. That there are multiple subresources isn't
> interesting to a user. So the right algorithm is: 1. collect the full
> list of all locales for which the package is partially localized. 2.
> build the list of user requested locales using the algorithm we
> defined. 3. Use the first matching locale between (1) and (2). 4. Deal
> with fall back. I think 4 involves telling Authors that if they want
> to be able to use a /locales/en/ image in /locales/en-us/ then they
> need a /locales/en-us/images.css that pulls in /locales/en/bird.jpg --
> however, it's probably best just not to allow it at all.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinellidae is something I encountered
> @HEL flying to the F2F, I call it a Lady Bug, but the label (embedded
> in what I'll call a "picture" said "Lady Bird", and I though it was a
> mistake, so i took a "photo" of it to post to my friends. If I posted
> the photo as /en/, the GB/AU/... friends would not get it). Similarly,
> Nokia has this gem:
> http://www.webwizardry.net/~timeless/w7/nokia%20communication%20centre%20-%20Use%20the%20Calendar%20view%20in%20Nokia%20Communication%20Center%20to%20manage%20your%20device%20calendar%20for%20example%20by%20creating%20editing%20or%20deleting%20calendar%20entries.png
> which is because they tried to be clever about sharing a picture
> between the en-GB installer and the en-US installer.
>   The results are terribly embarrassing
> 9:02 AM Put another way. The goal of localization should be twofold:
> 1. allow the user to express a preference. 2. enable the author not to
> make the mistakes that Nokia has made
> 9:03 AM mixed content such as my Lady Bug/Bird example and Nokia's
> myriad examples (the classic one being their Flag example, url
> available for archival purposes later; the more modern example being
> centre/center).

We discussed this in yesterday's teleconf [1]. The working group
concluded that the above is a feature, not a bug: All it means is that
developers need to have a better QA process and we should not attempt
to solve this technologically.

Please see also Jere's feedback to your comments above in [2].

For the sake of the Disposition of Comments, can you live with the
current model?

Kind regards,
Marcos
[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2009JulSep/0074.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2009JulSep/0072.html


-- 
Marcos Caceres
http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Friday, 3 July 2009 12:28:55 UTC