FW: [Distributed services] What is i18n on web services based web applications

I originally posted this incorrectly on this list.

Thanks,

Addison

-----Original Message-----
From: Addison Phillips [wM] [mailto:aphillips@webmethods.com]
Sent: Monday, April 01, 2002 10:18 AM
To: www-i18n-workshop-request@w3.org; locales@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Distributed services] What is i18n on web services based
web applications


All:

I've been trying to catch up with the locales group and trying to make up my
mind about their efforts (what is it? should I support/join in? is it
germane to stuff I'm working on?). In general, I agree with Noji-san's
message and the idea that this represents a different qualitative and
quantitative problem than "locales" is working.

I think I would state the problem differently: distributed systems such as
Web Services need an I18n architecture. [As opposed to "we need an I18n
architecture which can be used for ......]

As a result, I don't think this actually requires a whole new locale model.
Architecture, yes, but more along the lines of a protocol than an
infrastructure.

I fear that an infrastructure might not be accepted because it would not be
simple enough (we would understand it in this forum, but the authors of SOAP
et al aren't thinking all that much about it, as near as I can tell. There
is an expectation that xml:lang already does this, I believe.).

Perhaps I am misreading the intentions and direction of the locales group in
this, but I don't see why I need the full range of locale data or
preferences in an XML document, especially a Web Services document such as a
SOAP envelope. Correctly structured data is nearly always locale neutral
(the data model in SOAP for example sees to that).

That said, there is a role for locale in XML and distributed systems. For
example, the sort order of a collated result set (series of records) in an
XML file should probably match the expected order of the client...

I think what is lacking is:

1. A simple, well-documented standardized way of negotiating (indicating and
fulfilling) locale preference on the web (can we formally co-opt
Accept-Language, seeing as almost everyone uses it as both "locale" and
"language choice"?) and especially in Web Services (possibly via an
"xml:locale" tag). This is not the same thing as indicating the
locale/format of returned data. These are two separate things.

   1a. SOAP in particular needs to have a locale passing mechanism. There
needs to be thought given to how multiple hops on the way to the destination
handle locale, for example. I realize, from several long chats with our WS
folks, that SOAP has gone out of their way to avoid protocols, but I firmly
believe that the locale passing belongs in the envelope and I think it
should be defined at the most abstract level so that the most
implementations inherit good i18n behavior. Call me crazy.

2. A simple, well-documented standardized way of indicating language
preference in XML (recall that xml:lang is an attribute, not a request-->
using an attribute with a specific scope to imply the language desired seems
haphazard, and what if you don't have an object that takes an xml:lang
attribute in your request?).

3. The rules for handling these requests (chaining, negotiation,
defaulting/fallbacks, what to do if no locale is requested, what to do if
multiple locales are requested, etc.) would also be a useful adjunct
(perhaps this is part of the locales group's project already??)

The locales group appear to be defining both a complete i18n model (locale
model) and an XML schema for transmitting the locale identifier or specific
elements or facets of a locale. This is good work and useful. But I don't
actually expect to need 99% of that. What I would like is something simple
that can be promulgated to a large number of other WGs to get the desired
result: hooks for our systems to use their already formidable multi-locale
support with external systems.

Thanks,

Addison

Addison P. Phillips
Globalization Architect
webMethods, Inc.
432 Lakeside Drive
Sunnyvale, California, USA
+1 408.962.5487 (phone)
+1 408.210.3569 (mobile)
----------------------------------------
Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.





-----Original Message-----
From: www-i18n-workshop-request@w3.org
[mailto:www-i18n-workshop-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Kentaroh Noji
Sent: 2002?3?28? 4:08
To: www-i18n-workshop@w3.org
Subject: Re: [Distributed services] What is i18n on web services based web
applications



David, thank you for your information.
Because I have ever worked on locale as a member of an open source,  I agree
that locale is important i18n. However, the net message of my opinion on
this mailing list is a little bit different.

My message is:
W3C i18n can define a model or an architecture of internationalization for
web based client/server/distributed programming, because W3C works on not
only XML based document processing but also web based callable programming
interface such as Web Services. It may be impossible to mention about i18n
on the specific technologies such as Java2EE, script languages for CGI etc,
but it is possible to specify an conceptual i18n architecture/model of web
programming including SOAP.  I think that the appearance of Web services is
a trigger to work for that.

Thanks,
Kentaro Noji
Globalization Center of Competency, Yamato Software Lab., IBM

Received on Saturday, 6 April 2002 06:55:07 UTC