Re: Updated Working Draft "Best Practices for XML Internationalization"

At 12:55 07/07/02, Felix Sasaki wrote:

>Mark Davis wrote:

>> On 6/30/07, *Martin Duerst* <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp <mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>> wrote:

>>     >> Include <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>xml:lang in
>>     your DTD or schema to allow to specify the natural language of the
>>     content
>>     >=>
>>     >Where necessary, include
>>     <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>xml:lang in your DTD
>>     or schema to allow to specify the natural language of the content.
>>     >
>>     >[why? because an XML document that just has locale-independent
>>     information like inventory counts of part numbers doesn't want to
>>     have this. Ditto below.]
>>
>>     Agreed, but the wording should be different. "where necessary"
>>     doesn't
>>     say anything specific. I'd go for a wording more along the following
>>     lines:
>>
>>     Include <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>xml:lang in
>>     your DTD or schema to allow to specify the natural language of the
>>     content for all elements that may contain natual language. 
>>
>> That really doesn't capture it. If your DTD doesn't have natural language content, there is no need for xml:lang.

For both Mark's and Felix'es wording, it's not the DTD that
contains natural language, but the actual documents described by
the DTD or schema.


>I would prefer Martin's wording and add after "may contain natrual language.": "If your DTD doesn't have natural language content, there is no need for xml:lang."

So I would reword this as follows:

"If an element is intended to never contain natural language,
there is no need for xml:lang."

This is just a clarification of the previous sentence, not really
new information, the 'may' says it all.

Regards,    Martin.


>The "may contain" is important since there are cases which depend on the actual use, like the <code> element in HTML.



#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp